Brendan Carr officially unleashes broadcast consolidation

布伦丹·卡尔正式开启广播行业整合时代

The era of set broadcast ownership limits is officially over, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to end the national ownership cap rule. 随着美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）周四投票决定废除全国性所有权上限规则，广播所有权设定限制的时代正式宣告终结。

The agency’s two Republicans, Chair Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty, voted to end the ownership cap, which restricts broadcast owners from holding stations that reach a combined more than 39 percent of US TV households, while Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez dissented. It formalizes a policy Carr has long criticized, and which he announced last month that he would seek to end at Thursday’s open FCC meeting. 该机构的两名共和党成员——主席布伦丹·卡尔（Brendan Carr）和委员奥利维亚·特拉斯蒂（Olivia Trusty）投票支持废除所有权上限。该上限此前限制广播所有者持有的电台覆盖范围不得超过美国电视家庭总数的 39%。民主党委员安娜·戈麦斯（Anna Gomez）则投下了反对票。此举正式确立了卡尔长期以来一直批评的一项政策，他上个月曾宣布将在周四的 FCC 公开会议上寻求废除该规定。

In place of a set limit, the FCC says, there will now be “granular, case-by-case review” to determine if broadcast consolidation is in the public interest. That will let the agency avoid having to “show special circumstances that would justify a waiver of a rule that no longer serves the public interest,” according to an FCC press release. FCC 表示，取而代之的是“细致的、逐案审查”机制，以确定广播行业的整合是否符合公共利益。根据 FCC 的新闻稿，这将使该机构无需再“证明存在足以豁免某项不再符合公共利益规则的特殊情况”。

Carr has often criticized the rule as an artificial limit that restrains broadcast owners from competing with social media and streamers that can reach “100 percent of the country” without accessing broadcast licenses. This is happening at the same time Carr and President Donald Trump have threatened broadcasters for coverage they view as unfair. For example, the FCC demanded early renewal of ABC’s broadcast licenses shortly after Trump criticized the network for late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s joke about his wife. The agency said its decision was connected to an investigation into the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) policies. 卡尔经常批评该规则是一种人为限制，阻碍了广播所有者与社交媒体及流媒体平台的竞争，因为后者无需广播牌照即可覆盖“全国 100%”的受众。与此同时，卡尔和唐纳德·特朗普总统近期因不满广播公司的报道而对其进行威胁。例如，在特朗普批评 ABC 电视台深夜脱口秀主持人吉米·坎摩尔（Jimmy Kimmel）拿他妻子开玩笑后不久，FCC 就要求 ABC 提前续签广播牌照。该机构称，这一决定与对该公司多元化、公平和包容性（DEI）政策的调查有关。

Those who oppose ending the ownership cap, including Gomez, say that allowing broadcast owners to gobble up as many stations as they can buy will disincentivize local reporting on public airwaves and drive up consumer costs. They also say that only Congress has the power to lift the ownership cap, since the figure was written into a 2004 law, leaving it open to legal scrutiny. 包括戈麦斯在内的反对废除所有权上限的人士认为，允许广播所有者尽可能多地收购电台，将削弱公共广播中本地报道的积极性，并推高消费者成本。他们还指出，由于该上限数字被写入了 2004 年的一项法律中，只有国会才有权取消它，因此这一决定可能会面临法律审查。

Still, the FCC under Carr has already found ways to work around the rule, even before voting it off the books. Carr agreed to waive the cap to approve the $6.2 billion merger of broadcasters Nexstar and Tegna. A federal judge has paused the merger pending a challenge by a group of state attorneys general. 尽管如此，在卡尔领导下的 FCC 即使在投票废除该规则之前，就已经找到了绕过它的方法。卡尔曾同意豁免上限，以批准广播公司 Nexstar 和 Tegna 之间价值 62 亿美元的合并案。目前，一名联邦法官已暂停了该合并案，等待州检察长团体的进一步挑战。