Brendan Carr uses Breitbart op-ed to frame FCC deregulation in partisan terms

Analysis: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr used a July 15, 2026, Breitbart op-ed to promote eliminating the federal rule that generally prevents one company from owning television stations reaching more than 39% of U.S. television households.

He argued that the limit, once intended to protect local broadcasters from national networks, now prevents station groups from competing with streaming services, cable networks and digital platforms.

Carr presented national programmers such as Comcast and Disney as powerful New York and Hollywood interests that impose programming and financial demands on local affiliates. He said larger station groups would have more leverage to reject national programs, negotiate affiliation agreements and invest in local news.

Under Carr’s proposal, the FCC would replace the blanket ownership limit with case-by-case reviews. Companies could exceed the cap when the commission determined that a transaction served the public interest. Carr said the change would help preserve local journalism and prevent television stations from suffering the same economic decline as local newspapers.

Replacing a clear national ownership limit with case-by-case reviews would give the FCC significantly more discretion and create greater opportunities for political bias.

Decisions could depend on which companies are seeking approval, which commissioners control the agency and whether a broadcaster’s programming is viewed favorably by the administration in power.

Under Carr, that system could benefit companies that align with the current administration’s priorities while subjecting other media organizations to tougher scrutiny.

Without firm, measurable standards, the public-interest test could become less of a neutral regulatory safeguard and more of a political tool used to reward allies, disadvantage critics and reshape the media market along ideological lines — which is one of the key reasons a blanket cap exists in the first place.

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Carr did not directly address these issues or outplay any specific plans on how such concerns might be addressed. His writing is also short-sighted in the sense that he sees plenty of advantages and positives to such a policy shift under the current administration, but fails to address how those with more conservative views might respond to such a potential rule change being applied under different leadership. 

That said, Carr’s argument contains a legitimate policy question. Broadcast ownership rules were written for a media environment that existed before streaming services, social media and nationwide digital distribution. Larger station groups may obtain lower operating costs, more advertising revenue and greater negotiating leverage.

Carr, however, treats those potential benefits as certain while giving little attention to the risks of consolidation.

The op-ed is also framed around several themes commonly used by conservative media and Republican political figures.

Carr begins by claiming that Americans no longer trust the “legacy national media,” then casts that distrust primarily as a consequence of ideological programming imposed by so-called coastal elites. The language does more than describe changes in the television business. It reinforces a conservative political narrative in which New York, Hollywood and national news organizations are culturally hostile to ordinary Americans.

His use of San Francisco and Salt Lake City as contrasting examples is similarly loaded. The cities function as ideological symbols rather than as evidence that national programming routinely fails local audiences. Terms such as “community values” remain undefined, allowing the phrase to imply that conservative communities need protection from liberal national content.

Carr also selectively identifies perceived adversaries of the political right. He names Comcast, Disney, MS NOW and Bluesky while omitting conservative national media companies and large station owners. Although X is included in a list of platforms with nationwide reach, it is not subjected to the same criticism as the companies associated with national news, entertainment or progressive politics.

Carr assumes greater corporate scale will result in more local reporting, but his op-ed offers no proposed staffing requirements, local-news spending commitments or other enforceable safeguards. Consolidation could instead produce more centralized management, shared content, staff reductions and standardized programming across markets. That possibility undercuts his claim that deregulation necessarily restores local independence.

Carr’s presentation of media-trust data is narrow and potentially misleading.

He says only 8% of Americans have “a great deal” of trust in mass media and that the number falls to 3% among Republicans. But the Gallup article to which the op-ed links uses a broader standard combining respondents who have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust. Under that measure, 28% of Americans and 8% of Republicans expressed trust in the media in 2025.

Carr isolates only the strongest positive response while omitting those who reported a fair amount of trust. That choice makes public confidence appear substantially lower than Gallup’s headline measure. He also uses Republican distrust as supporting evidence without examining how partisan political attacks against news organizations may have contributed to that distrust.

The poll covers newspapers, television and radio collectively. It does not establish that national television programmers caused the decline, that local station consolidation would reverse it or that viewers want broadcasters to remove programs that conflict with local political preferences.

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Carr compares the ownership cap with the national reach of Netflix, podcasts, cable networks and social media. The comparison conflates two different issues.

The FCC rule limits how many local television stations one company may own. It does not limit how many people may watch a program. Netflix’s ability to offer content nationwide is therefore not directly equivalent to one company owning the local a outlets, newsrooms and licenses serving communities across the country.

Broadcast stations also occupy a different legal position because they use publicly licensed spectrum and remain subject to FCC oversight. Carr invokes that distinction when discussing broadcasters’ public-interest responsibilities but largely disregards it when arguing that broadcast companies should be regulated like digital platforms.

An FCC chairman is permitted to support agency proposals and explain the reasoning behind them. Public advocacy for a rule change is not, by itself, improper or proof of an ethics violation.

The concern is the combination of Carr’s position, his rhetoric and the venue he selected. He is not merely an outside commentator criticizing media companies. He leads the agency that licenses television stations, reviews ownership transactions and can take enforcement actions affecting many of the companies he attacks.

Publishing the argument through a strongly partisan outlet gives the appearance that the chairman is building political support among one ideological constituency rather than addressing the public, regulated companies and interested parties through a neutral agency process. His portrayal of New York and Hollywood companies as culturally opposed to local communities further suggests that regulatory policy may be influenced by judgments about media viewpoints.

Carr also has a defensible reason for publishing the op-ed. FCC chairs are political appointees who routinely advocate for their policy priorities, and explaining a proposed rule change directly to the public can promote transparency.

Publishing in Breitbart allowed Carr to reach an audience that is especially distrustful of national media institutions and likely receptive to his concerns about local broadcasting.

Federal ethics principles state that government employees should act impartially, avoid preferential treatment and avoid conduct that creates a reasonable appearance of violating ethical standards.

Those rules do not automatically prohibit this op-ed, but they illustrate why the appearance of neutrality matters for an official exercising regulatory power.

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Carr also writes as though the policy’s outcome has largely been determined before the commission vote. He says the FCC “has a plan,” declares that the cap is doing the opposite of what was intended and presents repeal as the necessary remedy. That posture can undermine confidence that commissioners will meaningfully consider the administrative record, competing evidence and alternatives.

The legal authority to discard or broadly waive the cap is itself disputed.

The FCC has taken the position that Congress left the limit within the commission’s rules and preserved its authority to modify or waive it. Opponents argue that Congress effectively fixed the 39% limit when it amended federal law in 2004.

The most institutionally troubling aspect is not that Carr favors deregulation; FCC chairs from both parties routinely have policy agendas.

The broader, and potentially more impactful issue is that it links the exercise of federal regulatory authority to an explicitly partisan account of which media organizations represent those “community values,” risking turning the public-interest standard into a tool for rewarding politically favored media companies and pressuring ones that are not.