Not everyone is on board with the FCC waiving the local radio ownership caps. Several interested groups are vehemently arguing against changes, saying a repeal would only bring more consolidation and monopolization of the airwaves without any benefits.
The FCC’s current quadrennial review is considering relaxing or doing away with local radio ownership rules that limit how many stations one company can own in a single market.
The NAB and most radio broadcasters have been vocal in support of changes, and NAB now has called for a total repeal of ownership limits.
However, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) is dead set against further consolidation.
In new comments to the FCC, NABOB cites numerous reasons why deleting ownership caps and subcaps is unacceptable. It says the rule is the only tool the commission has to prevent further consolidation of radio ownership and prevent the further decline in Black station ownership in the United States.
“Increased consolidation of ownership in the broadcast industry reduces opportunities for minorities to enter the business or to grow,” the group said in recent comments. “NABOB is particularly opposed to any changes in the Local Radio Ownership Rule, because most existing Black American broadcast owners are in radio.”
NABOB says Black broadcast ownership has declined since 1995. The commission’s own data shows that Black people and other minorities are still “woefully underrepresented” in the ownership of radio and TV stations, according to NABOB. In 2023, the percentage of Black-owned full-power FM stations stood at 2%, with AM station ownership at 4%. The organization says Black Americans comprise 13.7% of the U.S. population.
[Related: Seven Radio Companies to the FCC: Lift Ownership Caps]
The current ownership subcaps rule is scrutinized by NABOB in its filing. The subcaps rule limits the number of radio stations that a licensee can own in a market, in either the AM or FM service. In the largest Nielsen markets, a licensee may own up to eight radio stations, but the subcaps rule limits that licensee to owning no more than five stations in either the AM or FM service. NABOB says that means major broadcast groups still need to own AM stations to maximize the number of signals and market share under the current rules.
Specifically, NABOB says the subcaps rule was adopted to protect AM radio. However, without it, “further devaluation of AM stations in relation to FM stations would result in a loss of service to many Americans who rely on AM radio for local news, information, sports and weather.
“And for AM station owners, including women and minorities, it could destroy the financial value of their AM assets. An abandonment of AM by large numbers of companies would have another negative impact on smaller AM station owners.”
Separately, the musicFIRST Coalition hasn’t changed its tune about local radio ownership rules, echoing its comments from previous reviews: “The current FM ownership caps remain necessary to protect the public interest in competition, localism and viewpoint diversity.”
The group takes no position on whether the commission should relax AM ownership limits.
Consolidation of commercial FM ownership following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the coalition says, led to centralized playlist control, significant reductions in local programming staff, as well as diminished opportunities for airplay and promotions for new and local artists.
In fact, “listener research shows growing dissatisfaction with radio’s predictability and repetitive playlists, underscoring the continuing importance of locally-programmed, independently-owned FM stations as sources of diverse music, viewpoints through both spoken word and music lyrics and locally produced programming.”
The musicFIRST Coalition, a group of artists, labels and music organizations, believes relaxing FM ownership limits would disproportionately harm viewpoint diversity and localism on AM/FM stations; devalue already-struggling AM stations; threaten AM radio’s role in public safety; and create barriers to entry, particularly for minority broadcasters and women, whom historically have struggled to obtain capital for purchase of broadcast stations.
The FCC must retain the current Local Radio Ownership Rule for FM radio to protect independent AM/FM radio operators who compete locally against larger radio clusters, the group stated in its comments.
The coalition has taken sides in broadcast matters previously, pressuring Congress to kill the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act unless it is linked with their efforts to secure a performance royalty on radio broadcast airplay. Like the AM bill, the American Music Fairness Act has not seen a full vote in the House and Senate.
Finally, advocacy group Free Press told the FCC that “local media” is unique among all forms of media in that radio stations require broadcast licenses, and the scarcity of those requires regulation that maximizes the number of unique licenseholders.
“This scarcity, broadcasting’s pervasiveness and the central fact that a federal government agency alone determines who can use these airwaves to speak, means that by definition a broadcast license holder’s speech is privileged above that of other speakers,” Free Press stated in its comments.
Free Press believes “the proceeding once again brings into focus the failure that is the commission’s relentless policy of broadcast media ownership deregulation stretching back more than two decades now.”
It continued: “The commission has failed to achieve the agency’s goals and Congress’s statutory mandates, in large part because it has often shown total fealty to the broadcast industry’s policy arguments equating its own financial interests with the public’s interest.”
Free Press says the commission is moving forward with plans to give the industry a “green light to monopolize the public airwaves.”
The group was dire in its prediction if the FCC repeals local ownership limits: “While the public has already lost so much from years of rampant consolidation, there’s still more to lose. The few remaining broadcast media ownership rules are the only barrier to the formation of local media monopolies. If the commission further weakens or eliminates these rules, it will irrevocably harm broadcast competition, localism and diversity.”
You can review filed comments in this quadrennial review (Docket MB 22-459) at the commission’s website.
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