In the early 2000’s analog public TV broadcasts were turned off in the Netherlands. The only way to receive the publicly funded channels was through a commercial company requiring a subscription to a digital service. I learned a lot that time.
Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
41–50 of 119 posts
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#42Didn't the supreme court recently overturn the Chevron Doctrine? Doesn't that mean agencies like this are not free to set their own rules when a law is ambiguous? And isnt the cap on number of households reached actually codified unambiguously in federal law? Seems to me like this should not be allowed to happen. Let me know if I am wrong.
Well, you see, under the current administration, everything is allowed.
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#43Didn't the supreme court recently overturn the Chevron Doctrine? Doesn't that mean agencies like this are not free to set their own rules when a law is ambiguous? And isnt the cap on number of households reached actually codified unambiguously in federal law? Seems to me like this should not be allowed to happen. Let me know if I am wrong.
> Doesn't that mean agencies like this are not free to set their own rules when a law is ambiguous?
Agencies can say whatever they want but courts are not required to defer to them when this inevitably goes to a lawsuit.
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's already widely done in the US. If you plug in an antenna and scan for local channels, what used to be one analog TV channel on colloquially-named "channel 7" in the defined channel 7 frequency range will now be seen as "channel 7-1" which is often (but not always!) actually broadcast on the old frequency. During the ATSC transition, it was important to retain the branding and consumer memory of "channel 7" eve…
That's not what I'm talking about though. We should have repacked ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox onto a single channel.
Seventeen years ago, when we transitioned, the state of available and deployed equipment, codecs, and home receivers would not have permitted it.
I mean sure, you could pack four streams into one 6MHz channel. They could even be "HD" insofar as the transmitted stream is 720p or 1080i.
The result would have been MPEG-2 program streams of about 4.5Mbit each instead of about 18-19Mbit (assuming no other subchannels). That would make live sports or anything with significant motion look like absolute dogshit.
You might say that you don't care about that, and that is fine for you. However, in that case, I would respectfully submit that opinion to be far from the center of the bell curve of television-viewing American public of that era.
We could do a lot better with ATSC 3.0. So, there might someday be a second round of broadcast frequency reclamation, just as there was with ATSC 1.0.
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#45What could possibly go wrong?
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#46of course they do. Prepare for sinclair to own everything.
Nexsar is taking over Tegna. Currently tied up in courts, but it's pretty much sinclair-like propaganda machine.
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#47Didn't the supreme court recently overturn the Chevron Doctrine? Doesn't that mean agencies like this are not free to set their own rules when a law is ambiguous? And isnt the cap on number of households reached actually codified unambiguously in federal law? Seems to me like this should not be allowed to happen. Let me know if I am wrong.
If this Baltimore Sun article is accurate, it's worse than that as it sounds like the FCC is overriding a law passed by Congress and not just (re)setting a rule.
> The 39% cap was established by Congress in 2004.
1. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2026/08/06/federal-communicatio...
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
most people aren't hn readers. broadcast tv is far from useless in 2026, that's how many normies watch tv.
this is all about allowing sinclair and their right wing ilk to own local news.
> this is all about allowing sinclair and their right wing ilk to own local news.
From 2017, "Sinclair Broadcast Group: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc
"John Oliver: Sinclair Broadcasting brings 'troubling' rightwing bias to local news":
* https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/03/john-ol...
"John Oliver: How Sinclair Broadcast Group 'Brainwashes' Local News":
* https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/john-ol...
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#49This will be remembered in history as a major test of whether we turn from a Republic to an Empire. If the executive can successfully override Congressional law, it's no longer a democracy.
Re: Federal Communications Commission scraps limit on broadcast TV ownership
#50Broadcast TV seems laughably irrelevant. It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable, satellite TV, home Internet, or a cell phone. The latter two are how people consume video and TV to a large degree today. In exchange, we have a great deal of spectrum tied up for terrestrial TV, much of which goes to running infomercials or else is surreptitiously leased for terrestrial data…
> It’s difficult to find official numbers, but under 1% of US households have no cable, satellite TV, home Internet, or a cell phone. The latter two are how people consume video and TV to a large degree today.
Fairly wrong/irrelevant metric. Lots of people subscribe to Netflix and watch OTA broadcasts.
Lots of people stick to a Plex membership just because of its DVR capability - that's for broadcast TV.
Lots of DVR and adjacent products out there on the market for people who watch broadcast TV.
I wouldn't dream of getting a cable subscription when I can get so much good content for free. Streaming fills the rest.