D.C. Memo: Is the FCC’s Media Bureau Playing Fair? NCTA Thinks Not
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Top 4: Is the FCC’s Media Bureau playing fair? The cable industry’s top lobbying arm – NCTA – The Internet & Television Association – clearly thinks not. Here’s why. In a recent order signed by acting Media Bureau Chief Erin Boone, the FCC allowed one company to inherit control of the ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox stations or signals in one of the smallest markets in the country – Greenwood-Greenville in Mississippi. Ordinarily, the FCC allows ownership of just one Big Four (or Top Four) in a market, though legal loopholes have caused outlier cases like the decade-old Greenwood-Greenville example to dot the DMA landscape. Boone’s order isn’t sitting too well with NCTA, which in 2023 got the FCC to shutter the loopholes and ban the transfer of a Greenwood-Greenville structure without an FCC waiver. NCTA’s chief concern is that prior to Boone’s June 4 decision to let Imagicomm Greenwood sell its Big Four combo to Greenwood License, the agency should have issued a single public notice about the pending transaction. (More after paywall.)
