At NAB, FCC’s Olivia Trusty threads the needle on broadcast public interest, ownership and free speech

Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty delivered remarks Monday at the 2026 NAB Show that covered some of the most contested terrain in broadcast regulation, addressing ownership rules, localism, sports rights and the FCC’s own responsibilities to broadcasters — while stopping short of weighing in on the specific proceedings that have made her agency a subject of national debate.

Trusty, a Republican appointed to the commission less than a year ago, framed her speech around a question posed at NAB Show nearly three decades earlier.

In 1998, then-Commissioner Michael Powell described waiting for what he called “the angel of the public interest,” someone who might clarify how that standard should be applied to broadcast licensees. Trusty said the search had not ended.

“Although this angel never reportedly appeared to Commissioner or Chairman Powell, advancing the public interest in broadcasting is just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago,” she said.

Her remarks arrived at a moment of unusual tension between the FCC and broadcast news organizations.

In recent months, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has opened investigations into ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates for alleged news distortion and equal-time violations, and has publicly threatened broadcasters with license consequences over coverage he characterized as inaccurate. Trusty did not address those investigations directly, but her speech offered a notably different emphasis — one focused on empowering broadcasters rather than scrutinizing their editorial decisions.

Defining the public interest standard

Trusty laid out what she described as well-defined elements of the public interest obligations that come with a broadcast license: technical requirements, business conduct rules, content presentation obligations such as emergency alerts and sponsorship identification, and content restrictions such as prohibitions on obscene programming.

She also addressed the FCC’s news distortion policy, which she described in structural rather than political terms, noting that a station “cannot truly serve its community if it knowingly distorts the news about important events.”

Advertisement

She did not elaborate on how that standard applies to any current proceedings.

The core of her argument was that the public interest standard, properly understood, is not a mechanism for regulatory intervention in editorial decisions, but a framework for ensuring broadcasters serve the communities to which they are licensed.

“Broadcasters are at their best when they serve as trusted sources of local news,” she said, pointing to winter storm coverage, emergency alert operations and mental health programming as examples of what broadcast licensees provide that other media do not.

Ownership, competition and the modern media marketplace

On broadcast ownership regulation, a subject the NAB has pressed the FCC to address for years, Trusty signaled openness to loosening rules she said were designed for a different era, while stopping short of specific commitments.

“It also means updating, or eliminating, rules, consistent with our statutory authority, that may have made sense decades ago but now stand in the way of innovation,” she said.

She framed the question of ownership limits around three longstanding FCC objectives: competition, diversity of voices and localism.

On competition, she said the FCC should be cautious about approaches that focus too narrowly on broadcasting while overlooking the broader competitive landscape broadcasters face against unregulated digital platforms. On diversity of voices, she said the explosion of audio and video platforms has expanded the overall number of voices in the media ecosystem, though the relationship between local stations and national networks remains an open question within broadcasting.

On localism, she offered what she described as reason for optimism, citing conversations with broadcasters in Kansas and Utah who told her that local news, weather and sports remain “appointment viewing” and that they are working to expand local programming.

“Broadcasters succeed precisely because they understand and serve their local communities better than anyone else,” she said.

Sports, streaming and the antitrust question

Trusty devoted a portion of her remarks to sports rights, a pressure point for local broadcasters as professional leagues have shifted programming to streaming platforms and are the subject of a current FCC review.

She noted that more than 8,000 people had submitted comments to the FCC about sports migration to streaming, with 98% expressing frustration and a preference for broadcast as the primary platform for live sports. She cited the NBA All-Star Game’s return to broadcast television as an example of the viewership that free, over-the-air distribution can generate.

Sports rights migration to streaming draws broadcast industry push for FCC regulatory action

Her remarks touched on a legal dimension that has received less public attention: Congress extended an antitrust exemption to sports leagues specifically for their rights negotiations with “sponsored telecasts.” Trusty suggested that exemption deserves scrutiny when sports content moves behind a streaming paywall.

Advertisement

“When sports migrate behind a streaming paywall, that public interest is no longer being served, and the need for government immunity is less clear,” she said.

The FCC’s responsibility to broadcasters

Perhaps the most direct element of Trusty’s remarks was her argument that the FCC has a reciprocal obligation to the broadcasters it licenses.

She cited former FCC Chairman Powell’s 2004 NAB Show remarks to make the point: if broadcasters carry public interest obligations that other media do not, the regulatory framework must support their ability to fulfill those obligations.

“It makes it critical for the FCC to ensure that broadcasters not only survive in today’s competitive environment, but thrive,” she said.

She also flagged the financial condition of local broadcast news directly, noting that more than half of local broadcast TV newsrooms are reportedly unprofitable on a standalone basis. She acknowledged that AI offers potential efficiency gains for distribution workflows, but said newsrooms also face new burdens responding to AI-generated misinformation spreading through social media.

“A strong financial footing will better position broadcasters to meet and overcome those challenges,” she said.

Trusty closed by returning to Powell’s angel metaphor, reframing it: the Greek root of the word “angel,” she noted, means “messenger.” If the FCC gets its policy framework right, she said, broadcasters themselves could serve in that role.

“If the FCC gets the policy framework right, supporting broadcasters while ensuring accountability to the law, FCC rules, and longstanding legal doctrine, I believe broadcasters themselves could serve as the ‘angels of the public interest,'” she said.

Advertisement