Brendan Carr, an FCC commissioner who is Donald Trump‘s pick to chair the regulatory body, vowed to back local TV stations “even if that’s in conflict with the interests of national broadcast networks.”
Appearing Friday on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Carr continued to draw attention to broadcast networks’ “public interest” obligations in the wake of calls from Trump and his supporters to compel the FCC pull network licenses. Two key flashpoints have been a CBS interview with Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes and an appearance by the Democratic candidate on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
“Broadcast licenses are not sacred cows,” Carr said in the interview (WATCH IT ABOVE). “At the same time, when you think about media, separate it into two issues, right? You’ve got the national networks, for instance ABC, NBC, CBS. They provide a lot of the content that the actual licensed local broadcasts disseminate. And so we need to look at empowering those local broadcasters to serve their local communities, even if that’s in conflict with the interests of those national networks. I mean, at the end of the day, you’ve got all this content from Hollywood and New York that’s being distributed down through these local broadcasters. Let’s make sure they feel empowered to do the right thing by their local community.”
While the commissioner didn’t elaborate on how the local-national split would work in practice, his sentiment is likely to appeal to local station owners. For many years, stations have taken a fairly dim view of national broadcast programming, objecting to its cost and sometimes its clash with local viewer tastes. During the streaming era, as cord-cutting has starved ratings and many network owners have shifted programming to streaming, stations have expressed new frustrations. They also have renewed calls for a return of some prime-time real estate, with the long-sought recapturing of the 10 p.m. hour remaining in play.
Carr vowed last month to hold CBS accountable for its editing of the 60 Minutes piece on Harris. He told Fox News that a “news distortion” complaint brought against CBS over the segment was “likely to arise” during the FCC’s review of CBS parent Paramount Global’s pending sale to Skydance Media. In the SNL matter, Carr accused NBC of a “clear and blatant effort” to flout the FCC’s “equal time” rule, which requires the same amount airtime to be given to major-party candidates.
The wide-ranging CNBC conversation also touched on the American public’s vastly diminished faith in the news media. As Trump Administration officials look to address that, Carr said, “there’s a role for the FCC, at least on the broadcast side, for instance. They have to operate in the public interest. And I think it’s probably appropriate for the FCC to take a fresh look at what that requirement looks like.”
Carr also said the commission would take a look at ownership rules. For decades, there has been a cap keeping a single owner from controlling stations with collective reach to more than 39% of U.S. households. “If you look at big tech, for instance, obviously they can reach 100% of the country, but local broadcasters are limited by FCC rules to only reaching a certain portion,” Carr said. “So, I’m very open-minded on those separate sets of issues as well, is how do we make sure we get investment in local journalism, investment in local news? For too long, the FCC stood by the wayside as newspapers across the country closed by the dozen. There was a lot of reasons for that, but we also had rules that prevented investment in local newspapers that certainly didn’t help. So we’re going to try to walk and chew gum at the same time. There is that whole set of ownership issues that I want to take a fresh look at as well.”
Pushed by Faber’s co-host, Melissa Lee, about how the FCC would evaluate compliance with the public interest rule, and whether he was finding another way to say broadcasters could be punished for leaning too far left, Carr sought to clarify things. “Obviously there’s a statutory provision that prevents the FCC from engaging in censorship,” he said. “I don’t want to be the speech police. But there is something that’s different about broadcasters than, say, podcasters, where you have to operate in a public interest. So right now, all I’m saying is maybe we should start a rulemaking to take a look at what that means.”
A spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, the industry’s main trade group in Washington, opted not to weigh in Friday evening when contacted by Deadline.
