2022 Quadrennial Regulatory Review-Review of the Commission's Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to the Telecommunications Act of 1996

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 73</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MB Docket No. 22-459; FCC 25-64; FR ID 317689]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>2022 Quadrennial Regulatory Review—Review of the Commission's Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to the Telecommunications Act of 1996</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) seeks comment on the Commission's media ownership rules. It asks whether the Local Radio Ownership Rule, the Local Television Ownership Rule, and the Dual Network Rule remain necessary in their existing form, or whether they should be modified of repealed. Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 directs the Commission to conduct such review every four years. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments due on or before December 17, 2025. Reply comments due on or before January 16, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested parties may submit comments and replies, identified by MB Docket. No. 22-459, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers.</E> Comments may be filed electronically by accessing ECFS at: <E T="03">http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Paper Filers.</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are now accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries other than U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class, Express, and Priority Mail must be addressed to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People With Disabilities.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. • In addition to filing comments with the Secretary, a copy of any comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements contained herein should be submitted to the Federal Communications Commission via email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> and to Cathy Williams, FCC, via email to <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ty Bream, Industry Analysis Division, Media Bureau, <E T="03">Ty.Bream@fcc.gov,</E> (202) 418-0644. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), FCC 25-64, in MB Docket No. 22-459, adopted and released on September 30, 2025. The full text of this document is available electronically via the search function on the FCC's website at: <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-64A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document may contain proposed new or modified information collections. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on any information collections contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, we seek specific comment on how we might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> The Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act requires each <E T="03">agency,</E> in providing notice of a rulemaking, to post online a brief plain-language summary of the proposed rule. Accordingly, the Commission will publish the required summary of this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. With this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), we seek comment on the Commission's media ownership rules pursuant to section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which directs the Commission to review such rules every four years to determine whether they remain “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition” and to “repeal or modify any regulation [that it] determines to be no longer in the public interest.” This periodic review aims to ensure that the media ownership rules continue to serve the public interest in light of new and emerging technologies and ever-evolving marketplace conditions. The rules subject to our review in this proceeding are: (1) the Local Radio Ownership Rule; (2) the Local Television Ownership Rule; and (3) the Dual Network Rule. As discussed below, we seek comment on whether these rules remain necessary in their existing form, or whether any such rules should be modified or repealed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> 2. The three rules within the scope of our review in this proceeding have been part of the Commission's broadcast regulatory framework for more than half a century. The Commission concluded the most recent of these statutorily mandated periodic reviews in December 2023, with the issuance of a Report and Order in its 2018 Quadrennial Review proceeding. 3. The <E T="03">2018 Quadrennial Review Order,</E> among other things, reaffirmed the relevant legal framework for evaluating the Commission's media ownership rules pursuant to section 202(h). First, the Commission stated that the phrase “necessary in the public interest” in section 202(h) establishes a “ ‘plain public interest' standard under which `necessary' means `convenient,' `useful,' or `helpful,' not `essential' or `indispensable.' ” Second, the Commission stated then the principle that section 202(h) creates no “presumption in favor of repealing or modifying the ownership rules,” and that the agency, therefore, has discretion “to make [the rules] more or less stringent.” Third, the Commission then reaffirmed its broad statutory authority, as validated by the Supreme Court in <E T="03">FCC</E> v. <E T="03">Prometheus,</E> to regulate broadcast stations in the public interest. In particular, the Commission reaffirmed that the public interest analysis under section 202(h) should continue to focus on whether the ownership rules remain necessary to advance the agency's three traditional policy goals of competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity, and that the Commission should not abandon this approach in favor of an approach that elevates one public interest goal ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> competition) over another. 4. In applying this framework, the Commission concluded in the 2018 proceeding that two of the three rules noted above—the Local Radio Ownership Rule and the Local Television Ownership Rule—remain necessary in the public interest, with some modifications. Specifically, the Commission found that the public interest would be served by revising the Local Radio Ownership Rule to make permanent the interim contour-overlap methodology historically used to determine ownership limits in areas outside the boundaries of defined Nielsen Audio Metro markets and in Puerto Rico. The Commission determined that these minor modifications would enable the Local Radio Ownership Rule to promote the public interest more effectively going forward. The Commission also found that it was necessary to revise the Local Television Ownership Rule by (1) updating the methodology for determining station ranking within a geographic market and (2) expanding the existing prohibition on transactions involving certain network affiliations in a market. The Commission stated that these modest adjustments to the Local Television Ownership Rule were justified in view of changes that occurred in the television marketplace, and that the rule ensures competition among local broadcasters while allowing for flexibility in appropriate circumstances. As for the Dual Network Rule, the Commission concluded that, despite marketplace changes, the rule remains necessary in the public interest without modification. In particular, the Commission found that the Dual Network Rule continues to promote competition in the provision of programming intended for large national audiences and the sale of national advertising time, and continues to foster localism by maintaining a balance of bargaining power between the Big Four broadcast networks (Big Four networks) and their respective affiliate groups. 5. Parties raised legal challenges to the <E T="03">2018 Quadrennial Review Order</E> shortly after its adoption, which were decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. On July 23, 2025, the court largely upheld the <E T="03">2018 Quadrennial Review Order</E> but vacated and remanded components of the Local Television Ownership Rule. The court found that the Commission acted arbitrarily and capriciously in retaining the Top-Four Prohibition—the provision requiring that, at the time an application to acquire or construct a television station is filed, at least one of the stations ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 70k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━