At this week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, The Los Angeles Times reports television station owners delivered a desperate plea to Washington, distilled into a single word: “Help.”
Streaming video has steadily eroded their traditional audience, while advertisers redirect budgets to digital platforms, leaving broadcasters behind. Looming on the horizon is the NFL—broadcast TV’s last reliable draw—which could opt out of its media rights deal after the 2029 season, potentially shifting more games to streaming. These pressures have left the industry, a decades-long provider of news, entertainment, and sports to local communities, grappling with an existential question: What will broadcast TV look like in five years, and how can it survive?
Station owners like Nexstar Media Group, E.W. Scripps, and Fox Television Stations argue that consolidation is a critical lifeline, enabling them to compete with sprawling tech giants. Yet, they’re hamstrung by outdated regulations. They’re now urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr, to scrap ownership caps limiting companies to two stations per market and a national reach of 39% of U.S. households—a ceiling last raised in 2004, before streaming dominated the landscape.
“We’re not asking for a bailout,” NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt said in a recent interview. “We just want a fair shot to compete.” Last week, the NAB petitioned the FCC to overhaul these rules, declaring, “The time to end this damaging restriction is now.”
Tech titans like Google and Facebook face no such limits, locally or nationally. YouTube alone commands 11% of TV viewing, while free, ad-supported streaming platforms like Tubi further erode traditional TV’s share. Nielsen data shows streaming now accounts for 43.5% of all TV viewing, dwarfing broadcasters’ portion, which has more than halved. Ad dollars tell a starker story: in 2023, digital video raked in $57 billion, up 17%, while local TV stations pulled in $18 billion, a 36% drop since 2000 when adjusted for inflation, per BIA Advisory Services.
Carr, the FCC chair, has criticized national media outlets like CBS, ABC, and NBC—targets of Trump’s ire for perceived liberal bias—but he’s viewed as a friend to local stations. At a recent panel, he expressed a desire to “re-empower” broadcasters and hinted at curbing tech’s dominance. Nexstar, the nation’s biggest station owner, is seizing the moment, airing news segments to drum up public support for deregulation. Viewers are pointed to a website offering pre-drafted social media posts urging an end to “regulations threatening my local TV station’s growth.”
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