FCC Can't Justify Eliminating UHF Discount, NAB Says

The FCC should act to raise the national TV audience reach limit and “cannot justify cutting back on the existing level of TV station ownership permitted nationwide,” based on the 2022 video marketplace, said NAB in an ex parte letter posted Monday in docket 17-318. That market has grown even more competitive since NAB last filed comments on the issue in 2018, the filing said. “Tightening a broadcast-only rule in a marketplace with almost unlimited video content for consumers and unprecedented options for advertisers would be arbitrary and capricious,” NAB said. The FCC “lacks any rational basis for imposing a stricter national TV ownership limit, including through the guise of a ‘technical’ rule change eliminating the UHF discount,” said the filing. Broadcasters have said they expect the FCC under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel to target the UHF discount, but industry executives told us they don’t expect that to occur until the commission has a Democratic majority.