The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to relax rules that have limited television station ownership for most of the century, allowing for the first time a single company or network to own two separate stations in the nation's largest cities.
One immediate result may be a rush by big television companies like the broadcast networks to sweep up any available television stations in cities where they already own a station. As put in one memo to the top corporate officers at one of the four big broadcast networks, "The race is on."Networks and other big station companies want to own more than one station in a market because it increases their presence in areas that are becoming increasingly crowded with other viewing options, like cable and satellite channels. It also allows them to save money on programming and personnel costs and gives them another outlet for shows they own.
For viewers in the biggest markets like New York, the change could lead to more local news and sports programming, which the networks said Thursday they would look to add to their new channels.
FCC Chairman William Kennard, who said the commission was acting to update regulations that were largely put into place in the 1930s and 1940s to ensure a diversity of media choices, called the changes "common-sense rules that recognize the dramatic changes that the media marketplace has undergone" over the last 30 years.
The new FCC standards will allow dual ownership in cities where there are a sufficient number of "media voices," which include all radio and TV stations, daily newspapers and cable systems. Specifically, a city must have at least eight independently owned television stations for one company to own two. And a company cannot own more than one of the four top-rated stations in any market.
All of the country's top 50 cities have that many, but many have only eight, which may mean "an intense game of musical chairs," as one senior network executive put it. "The voice test means you know you may have to get in fast."
While the decision will not result in a wholesale changeover in the control of stations, many industry executives said that the opportunity for owning two stations in a single market was likely to spur a surge in station sales in the coming months.