WASHINGTON, D.C.—In response to a FCC proposal to encourage local news by streamlining some regulations, Sinclair has filed comments with the FCC arguing that the FCC needs to address the economics of broadcast television by deregulating the industry in a number of key areas, including station ownership, the transition to ATSC 3.0 and rules governing vMVPDs.
Sinclair made the filing, which states “local journalism in the United States is in crisis,” in response to an FCC proposal to encourage local journalism by speeding up license renewals for stations offering local news.
“Sinclair does not oppose this proposal,” lawyers for the broadcast station group said. “But we respectfully submit that, if the Commission seeks to have a broader impact, the issue it must confront is one of economics, not unspecified regulatory carrots or sticks.”
“Accordingly, while we welcome the Commission’s efforts in this proceeding, we believe the Commission can and should do far more – and we hope the Commission will view this proceeding as a springboard rather than a stopping point,” the filing said.
More specifically Sinclair argued for relaxed station ownership rules, increased FCC efforts to boost ATSC 3.0 deployments, changing rules regulating retransmission negotiations with vMVPDs and a more measured approach to enforcement.
“We respectfully submit that the question of vMVPDs and broadcaster compensation for carriage will have orders of magnitude greater impact on local news over the coming years than any processing priority the Commission could conceivably propose,” the filing argued.
Sinclair’s lawyers also argued that the FCC needs to work to accelerate the transition to ATSC 3.0. “We welcomed the Chairwoman’s announcement of the Future of Television Initiative designed to answer many of the questions associated with the transition,” the filing said. “We nevertheless continue to urge the Commission to move forward more quickly and not to take actions that might create uncertainty regarding the transition, such as novel steps to police patent licensing despite a lack of jurisdiction or expertise on this issue or raising unrealistic or unattainable barriers to the transition.”
In terms of ownership reform, Sinclair argued that “as an initial step, the Commission could simply commit to complying with its statutory obligation to complete the Quadrennial Review every four years and remove or update regulations no longer necessary in light of competition. We question how the Commission can rationalize restrictive and unchanging local ownership rules at a time when most markets are served by one or zero newspapers and broadcasters face intense and increasing competition for both viewers and advertisers in a video marketplace that any fair observer would agree has changed significantly over recent decades.”
More information is available in the original filing.
