NAB's Kaplan Lobbies FCC's Berry on Plan for All TV Stations to Get 50% Ownership Discount
NAB lobbied again for its proposal the FCC make a slight change to the national TV-station ownership cap, posted Monday evening in docket 17-318 on a Nov. 21 meeting between NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan and Matthew Berry, chief of…
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staff to Chairman Ajit Pai. Preserve the 39 percent cap and give all TV stations a 50 percent discount, similar to the current UHF discount but applying to both UHF and VHFs, NAB said. “The premise underlying the national audience reach cap -- that stations reach all the TV households in the [designated market areas] in which they are located -- is a fiction.” The proposal to “account for both UHF and VHF stations at half their theoretical audience reach still overstates their actual marketplace reach,” NAB said. The record doesn’t show any harms caused by the current cap, NAB said. Several mid-size broadcasters seek a 50 percent cap advanced Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast want a total removal of the cap. No cap move is expected in what remains of 2018 (see 1811010041), as the agency apparently hasn't acted because there’s not enough industry consensus behind any recommendation.