Charter Communications wants to purchase fellow MVPD Cox Communications for $34.5 billion, the companies said in a joint news release and conference call Friday.
Broadcasters are poised to execute a rush of mergers and acquisitions if the FCC relaxes ownership rules, but uncertainty about markets, the direction regulators may take and the future of broadcast networks could influence deal-making, broadcast brokers said in interviews this week. The agency's failure to relax ownership rules could spur a wave of bankruptcies, they said. “The industry is crying out for some relief, and it really deserves some relief, because we can't compete with the giant companies that we're forced to compete with now,” Media Services Group co-founder George Reed said. Tideline Partners Managing Partner Gregory Guy said “2025 is the most fundamentally important year for broadcasters in decades.”
The FCC said in a release Wednesday that it has saved more than $567 million via cuts to contracts in an internal effort coordinated with the Department of Government Efficiency, but experts said those numbers may be misleading.
An ATSC 3.0 tuner mandate and a set date for the switch to the new standard are necessary for TV broadcasting to survive and compete with streaming, said Sinclair, Scripps, Gray and others in comments filed in response to NAB’s 3.0 petition in docket 16-142 by Wednesday’s deadline. The Consumer Technology Association, public interest organizations and multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) groups disagreed, arguing that a mandatory transition would increase costs for consumers and MVPDs, all to provide broadcasters with a new revenue stream.
In Q1 earnings calls this week, TV broadcast executives emphasized their expectations of ownership deregulation, hinted at station deals and discussed a recent proposal by FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington to cap network affiliation fees (see 2505020066). Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said on his company’s call that Simington’s proposal for a 30% cap on fees would likely find “very little traction” in Washington. On Capitol Hill, “there is very little interest in getting involved in the commerce between stations and networks.”
The FCC’s recent pressure campaign against broadcast networks continued this week as Commissioner Nathan Simington blasted ABC and American Idol for hiring Lin-Manuel Miranda. Meanwhile, a group of nine Senate Democratic caucus members pressed Paramount Global not to settle President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against CBS over 60 Minutes’ October 2024 interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, who was then the Democrats’ presidential nominee (see 2411010044).
NAB’s FCC petition on allowing broadcasters to use software in place of physical emergency alert system (EAS) equipment is “premature,” and granting it would be a “sweeping regulatory shift without the necessary technical, legal, or operational foundation,” said major EAS box manufacturer Digital Alert Systems in comments filed in docket 15-94 by Friday’s deadline. Nearly every other commenter in the docket -- including broadcasters, NCTA and the Society of Broadcast Engineers -- strongly endorsed NAB’s petition.
A proposal from FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington to fight “fake news” by capping fees that broadcast affiliates pay networks could include provisions protecting Fox, broadcast and FCC officials told us. Simington described the idea in a Thursday op-ed, co-written with Gavin Wax, his new chief of staff, and published in The National Pulse. President Donald Trump reposted the proposal Friday morning on Truth Social.
President Donald Trump's executive order late Thursday instructing CPB to cease funding NPR and PBS may not have an immediate effect on stations and will likely be challenged as part of CPB’s existing lawsuit, which disputes executive branch jurisdiction over the private corporation (see 2504290067), attorneys told us. Trump followed up on the order Friday, again proposing eliminating federal CPB funding as part of his FY 2026 discretionary budget request. Meanwhile, some pro-CPB congressional appropriators are warily eyeing Trump’s pending request that Capitol Hill claw back $1.1 billion in advance funding for the entity (see 2504150052).
The federal government wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to block a lower court injunction staying a White House executive order ending collective bargaining arrangements for employees at numerous agencies, including the FCC, IRS and Food and Drug Administration. The order removed collective bargaining rights at roughly 40 agencies on national security grounds, affecting two-thirds of the federal workforce. The injunction was issued last week after a legal challenge brought by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers at the FCC. NTEU has said the order is an existential threat to the union (see 2504040037).