The broadcast industry is asking for a level playing field as it relates to media ownership.
Seehafer Broadcasting Vice-President Terry Stevenson was among a contingency with the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association who joined the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington D.C. last week.
There, they addressed the perceived unfairness of media ownership.
He noted that under the current rules, those who own television stations are only allowed to reach up to 39% of the TV households in the country, while radio station ownership groups can only have a handful of channels in each market while “big tech such as Google or Mita operate without these regulations and yet they have access to 100% of a global audience.”
Stevenson calls the rules “outdated” and give the tech giants an additional leg up.
“The media marketplace has changed drastically since these laws were first put in place,” he noted. “We are now competing on a completely new level with the largest tech companies in the world for, not only advertising revenue, but also audiences.”
The NAB is asking Senators and Congresspeople to sign on to a bipartisan letter that would ask the FCC to modernize the regulations, which Stevenson says “prevent fair competition.”
The NAB also spoke with legislators on keeping AM radio in vehicles, a proposed performance fee for music played on the radio, and avoiding a tax on advertising, among other topics.
