WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the 39% national cap on television station ownership is now on the books. The order was published in the Federal Register on Thursday, and the repeal of the rule, 47 CFR 73.3555(e), takes effect Jan. 11, 2027. From then on, deals that would have pushed a broadcaster past the limit will be reviewed one by one rather than barred.
The commission says the change reflects “seismic changes in the modern media marketplace” and will “help empower local broadcast television stations to operate in the public interest and to better serve the needs and interests of their local communities.” In its Aug. 6 announcement of the 2-1 vote, the FCC said streaming services reach more than 80% of U.S. adults and enjoy unrestricted national reach, and that “eliminating the national cap will allow broadcasters to better compete with these unregulated digital giants.” Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty voted for the repeal. Commissioner Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat, dissented.
An Inquisitor review of federal lobbying disclosures found 186 quarterly reports from 18 companies and groups that list the national cap, broadcast or media ownership rules, or the Nexstar-TEGNA merger among their lobbying issues from the start of 2025 through September 2026. Together they reported $48 million in lobbying on those reports, led by the National Association of Broadcasters, Fox Corp. and Nexstar Media Group. Each report covers every issue a client lobbied on that quarter, so the totals measure the size of the lobbying operations engaged on ownership, not money spent on the cap alone.
What the FCC decided
The order replaces a fixed limit with case-by-case review. “There may be transactions that would have exceeded the limits of the 39% national cap that do not promote the public interest and that will be denied,” the commission wrote. “On the other hand, there may be transactions that would have exceeded the 39% national cap that do promote the public interest and could gain Commission approval.” It said it will weigh its three ownership goals, localism, competition and viewpoint diversity, in each deal, and that concerns about retransmission fees or local news “can be addressed within the context of the Commission’s review of that transaction.”
The order cites the Nexstar-TEGNA merger directly. Eliminating the cap, the commission wrote, “will be a more efficient and sensible approach than retaining the cap and granting waivers for transactions that serve the public interest, like the recent merger between Nexstar Media Inc. (Nexstar) and TEGNA Inc. (TEGNA).” The FCC’s Media Bureau approved that transfer March 19 with a waiver of the cap, according to Gomez’s statement at the time, and Communications Daily reported that Nexstar closed the deal days later as states and opponents sought stays. Ars Technica described the combined company as reaching 80% of the country.
The commission’s case for repeal rests on market data in the record. It cites BIA figures showing that television stations’ total advertising revenue, over the air and digital, “fell 42.9% from 2000 to 2024 on an inflation-adjusted basis,” and that “local broadcasters now control only 28.7% of the local advertising-supported viewing market, while 42.4% of that market goes to streaming services.” It notes that networks can now reach viewers directly through Peacock, Disney+, Paramount+ and Fox One, which weakens the old rationale that the cap protected affiliates’ bargaining power.
The legal fight
The cap has a statutory history that sets up the main dispute. Congress raised the limit from 25% to 35% in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004 it directed the commission to set the cap at 39% and removed “any rules relating to the 39 percent national audience reach limitation” from the FCC’s quadrennial ownership reviews. The rule also carries a “UHF discount,” which counts a UHF station as reaching only half the households in its market, letting a group reach up to 78% of households on paper.
The majority says the 2004 law “instructed the Commission only to ‘modify its rules,’” and “the power to modify its rules includes the power to later change them.” It points to the D.C. Circuit’s Fox Television Stations rulings, in which the court said Congress could have “enshrined the 35% cap in the statute itself” if it had wanted to freeze the number. The order adds that multiple FCC chairs, Republican and Democratic, have said the agency keeps the authority to change the rule.
Gomez rejects that reading. “Simply put, the national audience reach limitation is a statutory requirement and only Congress has the authority to raise it,” she wrote in March when the bureau approved the Nexstar deal. She said the 2004 law “affirmatively stated that the Commission was prohibited from forbearing from enforcing the statutory provision” and set a two-year divestiture deadline for any company that exceeds 39%. The order answers that the divestiture language “is not reasonably read to restrict the Commission’s discretion to alter the cap.”
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs found the order to be a “major” rule under the Congressional Review Act, the Federal Register notice says, and the commission will send it to Congress and the Government Accountability Office. The record behind it dates to a 2017 proposal, with comments filed in 2018 and a refreshed round of comments that closed in August 2025.
Who lobbied
The disclosure review covers quarterly LD-2 reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act from the first quarter of 2025 through the third quarter of 2026 that name the national cap, broadcast or media ownership rules, or the Nexstar-TEGNA merger as a specific lobbying issue. Amended reports replace the originals. In-house totals are what a company or group reported spending on its own lobbying; outside totals are what lobbying firms reported receiving from that client.
| Client | Reports | In-house spending | Paid to outside firms | Total | Outside firms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Association of Broadcasters | 28 | $19,690,000 | $820,000 | $20,510,000 | 4 |
| Fox Corp. | 61 | $8,720,000 | $2,405,000 | $11,125,000 | 8 |
| Nexstar Media Group | 7 | $5,974,000 | $0 | $5,974,000 | 0 |
| DirecTV | 27 | $2,550,000 | $1,120,000 | $3,670,000 | 3 |
| DISH Network | 12 | $2,500,000 | $240,000 | $2,740,000 | 2 |
| Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights | 5 | $1,430,000 | $0 | $1,430,000 | 0 |
| Sinclair Broadcast Group | 7 | $1,390,000 | $0 | $1,390,000 | 0 |
| Newsmax | 8 | $0 | $490,000 | $490,000 | 2 |
| iHeartMedia | 7 | $0 | $210,000 | $210,000 | 1 |
| INSP | 7 | $0 | $210,000 | $210,000 | 1 |
| American Television Alliance | 4 | $0 | $80,000 | $80,000 | 1 |
| Three state broadcaster associations (Iowa; Md.-D.C.-Del.; N.C.) | 9 | $0 | $60,000 | $60,000 | 1 |
| Comcast | 1 | $0 | $50,000 | $50,000 | 1 |
| Association of National Advertisers | 1 | $0 | $20,000 | $20,000 | 1 |
| ABC and NBC television affiliates associations | 2 | $0 | $0 | No amount reported | 1 |
| Total (18 clients) | 186 | $42,254,000 | $5,705,000 | $47,959,000 |
Nexstar’s own reports are the most specific. Its third-quarter 2026 report lists “Local and national broadcast ownership cap and related rules” and the “Merger of Nexstar Media Group, Inc. and Tegna Inc.” as issues, with contacts at the House, the Senate and the Executive Office of the President, and reports $690,000 in spending for the quarter. Its quarterly totals peaked at $1.14 million in the first three months of 2026, the quarter the bureau approved the TEGNA deal.
The broadcasters’ trade group lobbied the most. The NAB’s in-house reports list “issues relating to the Federal Communications Commission’s rules governing broadcast ownership” every quarter, at $2.5 million to $3.1 million a quarter, and four outside firms reported NAB work on media ownership. In the FCC docket, broadcasters urged the commission to eliminate the rule in its entirety, which they view as “an obsolete and artificial constraint on their ability to compete in a vastly changed media marketplace,” the order says. Supporters of the cap, “including public interest organizations and MVPDs,” the pay-TV distributors, argued that the FCC lacks the authority to change it.
Fox, which owns stations as well as the Fox network, reported the largest number of filings because eight outside firms list “media ownership issues” for it alongside retransmission consent, streaming and sports rights. Sinclair’s reports list “media ownership and ownership caps.”
The pay-TV side lobbied on the same issues. DirecTV and DISH, which pay broadcasters retransmission fees to carry their signals, list media ownership alongside “retransmission consent reform” in their reports, and DISH’s in-house filing describes “broadcast media ownership caps, consolidation, and retransmission consent reform.” In the FCC record, DirecTV filed a study by economist Allan Shampine concluding that larger station groups charge it higher retransmission fees than smaller ones; the NAB answered with an analysis by Jay Ezrielev disputing a causal link, and the commission found the evidence “conflicting.” The American Television Alliance, a coalition of pay-TV providers, pays Mercury Strategies $20,000 a quarter to monitor “Retransmission Consent Rules; Broadcast Ownership Cap; and Video Reform.”
Newsmax, a cable news network, has two firms on the issue. Bockorny Group lists “Issues related to the broadcast ownership cap,” and Squire Patton Boggs lists “Issues related to broadcast ownership cap and related matters.” The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights lists “Urging FCC to reject several media mergers” and “Comment on Media Ownership Rules” among dozens of issues.
The reports show which issues each client lobbied on, not which side it took on each one, and they do not break out spending by issue.
What the record says about local news
Both sides cited research on what consolidation does to local news. The order describes a 2024 study, by researchers including Nicola Mastrorocco and Arianna Ornaghi, that found coverage of local events and politics “dropped by about 10% on the Sinclair stations” after acquisitions, rose by about the same amount on stations Nexstar acquired, and showed “no real change” on stations Gray acquired. The commission concluded that “the effect of consolidation on local news coverage varies by merger” and is better judged deal by deal.
Critics in the record argued that bigger groups would still be no match for technology and media giants. Several commenters said eliminating the cap “would not let station groups achieve equal footing with massive conglomerates such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, DIRECTV, Verizon, Comcast, Disney, Paramount, and Fox,” the order says. The commission said it did not need to settle that debate to recognize broadcasters’ long decline in viewership and advertising.
What comes next
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1996 | Telecommunications Act raises the national cap from 25% to 35% |
| 2004 | Consolidated Appropriations Act directs a 39% cap and removes it from quadrennial review |
| Dec. 2017 | FCC proposes revisiting the cap and UHF discount (MB Docket No. 17-318) |
| Aug. 2025 | Refreshed comment rounds close (Aug. 4 and Aug. 22) |
| March 19, 2026 | Media Bureau approves Nexstar-TEGNA with a cap waiver |
| Aug. 6, 2026 | FCC votes 2-1 to repeal the cap (FCC 26-53) |
| Nov. 12, 2026 | Order published in the Federal Register (91 FR 72799) |
| Jan. 11, 2027 | Repeal takes effect |
The repeal leaves the local television ownership rule in place, and the commission said it will judge future deals against it. With the cap gone, the next test will be the first transaction that would have exceeded 39% without the Nexstar waiver. The lobbying reports for the fourth quarter, due Jan. 20, 2027, will show whether the industry’s spending on the issue continues after the vote.
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