Trump’s FCC is eyeing a simple fix to a decades-old rule that keeps conservative voices smaller on broadcast television: remove the national ownership cap. That rule dates back to 1941 and limits any single broadcaster to owning stations that reach no more than 39 percent of U.S. households. Lifting it would let well-funded conservative owners scale up and challenge the left-leaning dominance on the big networks.
The current team at the FCC, including Brendan Carr, Anna Gomez, and Olivia Trusty, has made clear it is willing to revisit the rules that shape who can own local TV stations. This isn’t a partisan stunt — it’s a direct response to a media marketplace that looks nothing like the one from the 1940s. The aim is straightforward: let local broadcasters compete on a national footing instead of being artificially capped.
For years Americans have been fed a steady stream of liberal viewpoints from major broadcast outlets, and the ownership cap helps explain why. The cap restricts station ownership, not programming, so big networks like Disney still dominate national content while being limited in how many local outlets a single company can control. That mismatch gives national conglomerates outsized influence over what millions of Americans see every night.
History offers a recent lesson. When Disney reinstated Jimmy Kimmel, some station owners pushed back by refusing to carry his show, but fragmented ownership left them unable to sustain a boycott. Larger companies with national reach easily pressure smaller stakeholders and normalize programming that reflects elite urban values. That imbalance is exactly what lifting the cap would correct: allow stronger local owners, including conservative operators, to build scale and resist top-down programming pressure.
Removing the cap would let broadcasters like Sinclair and Nexstar or new conservative entrants buy more stations and offer an alternative to the coastal media echo chamber. Greater ownership capacity means conservative viewpoints can be distributed without relying solely on cable or online platforms. That translates into real audience reach in towns and cities that still get most of their news from local broadcast stations.
Not everyone on the right agrees. The CEO of Newsmax has warned that lifting the cap “would harm local broadcasting TV.” That quote stands, and it reveals an awkward truth: some outlets that benefited from limited broadcast competition now fear change. Newsmax operates as a cable network not bound by the cap, so its caution reads like defensive protectionism rather than a principled defense of localism.
Opponents also point to the radio consolidation of the 1990s as a cautionary tale, but the media landscape today already features massive consolidation driven by multinational firms. Disney, Comcast, Viacom and others exercise massive control over national networks and programming decisions. The question is why conservatives should be the only side kept from scaling up to counterbalance that influence.
The National Association of Broadcasters has been blunt in its criticism of the ownership cap, arguing the rule “unfairly and improperly skews the market in favor of streaming platforms and other national and international technology and media conglomerates.” That bluntness matters because broadcasters understand business realities: rules that hamstring station owners make broadcast television less competitive against deep-pocketed streaming rivals.
From a business perspective, lifting the cap makes sense. Streaming services and big content conglomerates compete across the entire country while local station owners are artificially limited. Allowing consolidation among local broadcasters would enable investment in local newsrooms, better programming choices, and a healthier marketplace of ideas if ownership is allowed to scale responsibly.
Trump’s FCC has the chance to modernize rules that were written for a different era and to do so in a way that restores balance to the broadcast table. Conservatives should push for policies that let them compete, not plead for protection from competition. The fight isn’t about silencing anyone — it’s about opening up the marketplace so more voices can be heard on the system that still shapes millions of Americans’ evenings.
