ABC/Disney Gets Rewarded For Kissing Trump’s Ass: FCC Moves To Eliminate Any Remaining Media Consolidation Limits

ABC and Disney's attempt to please our dim idiot king by banning a critical comedian didn't go all that well. The company managed to lose 1.7 million streaming subscribers as customers voted with their wallets to punish the company for taking a giant dump on the First Amendment. This latest effort, you'll recall, came on the heels of ABC paying Trump a $15 million bribe to settle a lawsuit they easily would have won.

But as we've noted earlier, ABC and ABC affiliate executives are pleasuring our dim king for a very specific reason: they want Trump's FCC to destroy what's left of U.S. media consolidation limits, built over decades with bipartisan consensus. These rules tried to prevent rich oligarchs from turning U.S. media and journalism into an even bigger homogenized, feckless mess.

And right on cue, they're getting their wish. Yesterday Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr began the process of eliminating some of our last remaining media consolidation limits preventing one company from dominating local broadcast radio and television. ABC has also been hoping for years to eliminate rules that prevents the big four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) from merging.

More specifically, Carr votedto seek public comment on aNotice of Proposed Rulemaking(NPRM) that would eliminate a Local Radio Ownership Rule that limits the total number of radio stations that may be commonly owned in a local market" and a Local Television Rule that limits a single entity from owning more than two television stations in the same local market."

Seeking public comment" doesn't mean what it used to. The FCC will ignore any public backlash, and as usual, the comment proceeding will be presented with a lot of fake support from fake or dead Americans covertly posted by big company PR departments to pretend this is a good idea.

Carr's argument is that these restrictions are no longer necessary because the online internet media space is just so damn competitive:

In recent years, numerous online audio and video streaming services have emerged, fundamentally changing how broadcast radio and television compete in the media marketplace. Our broadcast ownership rules should reflect these changes."

But there are fifty years of clear evidence that media consolidation of any kind, be it new or old media, is immeasurably harmful. You can see the impact of the elimination of oversight on this front everywhere you look across old and new media. Constant consolidation in media has resulted in a feckless, billionaire-owned press that demonstrates to you every day they can't meet our current, authoritarian moment.

Local broadcast affiliates, most of which are run by right wingers (like Sinclair), want the FCC to let them all merge so they can dominate what's left of local broadcasting. Sinclair has been the butt of jokes for years because of their right wing propaganda pretending to be local news. The company already owns 185 television stationsin 85 markets and wants to merge with Nexstar and Tegna.

While it pales in comparison to online internet video consumption at places like YouTube, millions of people still watch local broadcast news. With the death of many local newspapers, it's often the closest to news" many Americans get. The result has been a large number of local news deserts where reliable, accurate local journalism is extremely difficult to come by.

But this Trump 2.0 push to consolidate isn't just about local broadcasters. National companies like ABC and Disney are also pushing to not just merge with each other, but to merge with modern media giants like TikTok. Telecoms, tech companies, and media companies are all looking to consolidate.

As you can see with what Larry Ellison's been up to with CBS, Time Warner, and TikTok, the goal of these acquisitions clearly isn't to serve the public interest, it's to stifle diverse opinion, undermine real journalism, and create a media full of corporatist bullshit and right wing propaganda. Their efforts, including Musk's purchase of Twitter, haven't exactly been subtle.

Saying we should eliminate the last remnants of media oversight and media antitrust enforcement because everything's so competitive and grand" is a bullshit argument made by simpletons and ghouls. It's flimsy cover for the exact sort of harmful media consolidations academics have been warning about for the better part of several generations.

Ironically (?), one of the greatest impacts of media consolidation (an erosion in quality journalism critical of consolidated corporate power) will result in most press outlets either not covering what Carr's up to, or portraying it favorably. At best you might get stories that quote a media consolidation academic suggesting this could be bad somewhere in the twenty-third paragraph.