A plan for cutting regulations and federal institutions such as the FCC could target broadband access programs and media regulations, but it's likely that a wave of litigation will stymie it, administrative law professors and attorneys told us. Future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) heads Vivek Ramasawamy and Space X CEO Elon Musk laid out their plans in a Wall Street Journal opinion column. “It's not to say that maybe some of these changes shouldn't be happening, but, you know, they're taking a wrecking ball to fix something that requires a little bit more finesse than that,” said University of Idaho law professor Linda Jellum. Asked about possible DOGE cuts at the FCC, incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr last week told reporters, “There's no question, there's tons of room for driving more efficiency at the FCC." He didn't elaborate.
Monty Tayloe
Monty Tayloe, Associate Editor, covers broadcasting and the Federal Communications Commission for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2013, after spending 10 years covering crime and local politics for Virginia regional newspapers and a turn in television as a communications assistant for the PBS NewsHour. He’s a Virginia native who graduated Fork Union Military Academy and the College of William and Mary. You can follow Tayloe on Twitter: @MontyTayloe .
The incoming Republican administration and Congress will likely work at rolling back many of the current FCC’s policies through a combination of agency action, court decisions and the Congressional Review Act (CRA), attorneys and analysts told us in interviews. The CRA's threat also will likely limit the current FCC's agenda, they said. “The CRA is kind of looming over anything the FCC wants to try to do before the administration switches over,” said Jeffrey Westling, American Action Forum director-technology and innovation.
The FCC’s draft order on creating a standardized process for authorizing content-originating FM boosters necessary for geotargeted radio ads is expected to be unanimously approved during the commissioners' Nov. 21 open meeting, industry and agency officials told us.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr posted his support Wednesday of President-elect Donald Trump's announcement that Space-X CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” “Delete, delete, delete,” commented Carr on a post from Musk about the new department.
Broadcast executives during Q3 earnings calls were hopeful for ownership deregulation and progress on ATSC 3.0 from a Republican-controlled FCC, but FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr -- the perceived front-runner to chair the agency -- said Thursday that scrutinizing broadcasters is among his priorities. “We're very excited about the upcoming regulatory environment,” said Sinclair Broadcast CEO Chris Ripley during Sinclair’s call Wednesday. “It feels like a cloud over the industry is lifting ... and ... some much-needed modernization of the regulations will be forthcoming.” In a news release Thursday, Carr said when the transition to the next administration is complete “the FCC will have an important role to play reining in Big Tech, ensuring that broadcasters operate in the public interest, and unleashing economic growth while advancing our national security interests and supporting law enforcement.”
The union representing FCC employees, the National Treasury Employees Union, said it's ready to work with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration but warned that it would oppose efforts against federal workers. The Trump White House is expected to implement plans laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and the Trump campaign’s Agenda 47, reducing the federal workforce and reclassifying many career civil servants, making it easier to fire and replace them with political appointees, academics and analysts told us. The NTEU “will make every effort to work in good faith” with the Trump administration, said NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald in a release. “However, we are fully prepared to work with our allies in Congress and use all the tools we have to fight any and all actions taken by his administration that would harm frontline federal workers, our ability to represent them or their ability to serve the American people.”
The group behind recent FCC complaints against CBS and ABC over their news coverage filed an equal time complaint against NBC and its station WNBC New York Monday over Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ weekend appearance on Saturday Night Live (see 2411040057). The complaint from the Center for American Rights echoes points first raised by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and calls for “a substantial fine” against NBC. “Broadcasters cannot abuse their licenses by airing what amounts to a free commercial promoting one candidate the weekend before the presidential election,” said CAR President Daniel Suhr in a news release. FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington backed the complaint Monday, saying “I urge Commission leadership to take these credible allegations seriously,” but multiple broadcast attorneys told us NBC appears to have satisfied the FCC’s rules.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling for an FCC investigation into whether NBC violated the agency’s equal time rules by broadcasting an appearance by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ Saturday Night Live over the weekend. However, the agency, communications attorneys and academics say the network appears to have complied when it provided free air time to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during major sports broadcasts Sunday. “I think the credibility and integrity of the FCC is on the line here,” Carr said Sunday in an interview on X. But a spokesperson for Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a post on X Monday said, “Our rules do not require that a network seek out opposing campaigns to offer the time,” adding, “the rival candidates have to request it. The requirements outlined under the FCC's ‘equal time’ rules here have been satisfied.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday filed a $10 billion lawsuit complaint against CBS that quotes FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington supporting allegations that the network deceived its audience when it edited an answer in an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats' presidential nominee. Meanwhile, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Friday said a future FCC chair in a second Trump administration would likely face considerable pressure to act against media outlets. During a Center for American Progress webinar, Wheeler said a Trump appointee could encounter a situation that no FCC chairman has "faced in the 90-year history of the commission.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, a member of his transition team and Elon Musk, X platform owner and SpaceX CEO, are repeating calls for broadcasters to lose their spectrum because their news broadcasts are too partisan.