D.C. Memo: Is Newsmax's Chris Ruddy Any Match for Nexstar's Perry Sook?
▪️MIT: No Starlink, No Ukraine▪️Carr Deletes More Regs▪️Sinclair to Carr: Get Going on ATSC 3.0▪️DIRECTV Wants FCC to Protect Retrans Data▪️Gomez: Trump Can’t Fire Me Legally ▪️Okla. Bans Chevron Def.
39% Cap: A confidant of President Trump is causing trouble for Nexstar CEO Perry Sook. Sook needs the FCC to change a key ownership rule – the 39% cap – before he can acquire TEGNA’s 64 broadcast TV stations for $6.2 billion in cash and assumed debt. Many observers expect FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to accommodate Nexstar in keeping with his oft-stated interest in strengthening local TV stations to bring them more into economic balance with the ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox networks. Not for the first time, Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a conservative media owner and Trump pal for many years, is saying no to relaxing the 39% cap, which is the maximum percent of TV households one TV station owner may reach nationally. “The only thing the [FCC] will get if it alters the national television multiple ownership limit is a permanent injunction. The [FCC] lacks authority and a compelling reason to change the rule,” Ruddy said in an FCC filing yesterday. The 39% cap is attracting opposites. A progressive, anti-business group like Free Press, for instance, and Newsmax see eye-to-eye in asserting only Congress can change the 39% because it is statutory. (More after paywall.)
