In a post titled “A Clean Slate Approach to Broadcast Regulation” on the Truth on the Market website, Dr. Eric Fruits argues that in a world of digital abundance, legacy broadcast regulations premised on spectrum scarcity would not be created today. A clean-slate thought experiment asks whether policymakers would allocate large swaths of spectrum to over-the-air radio and TV, cap ownership, or impose must-carry and retransmission-consent rules in an era dominated by streaming, podcasts, apps, and ubiquitous broadband. The answer is no.
High-capacity internet and 5G now reach most homes and businesses, with satellite service filling remaining gaps, making one-to-many linear transmission a niche supplement rather than a foundation of media. The author contends that devoting prime UHF spectrum to linear broadcasting imposes huge opportunity costs, pointing to the 2017 incentive auction, where mobile carriers valued the spectrum far above broadcasters. Internet distribution outperforms broadcasting on choice, on-demand access, personalization, and interactivity; even broadcasting’s mass-event efficiency edge is shrinking as CDNs scale. Emergency alerts could be handled by a minimal dedicated channel, while universal-service aims are better served by targeted broadband subsidies.
Ownership caps, designed for a scarce, three-network era, are depicted as obsolete amid overwhelming content choice. Instead of industry-specific limits, general antitrust should govern consolidation case by case, allowing broadcasters to reach competitive scale against global streamers.
The “public interest” standard is criticized as vague and asymmetric: broadcasters must meet children’s TV, political-ad, indecency, and public-file obligations that do not apply to streaming or podcasts. If society wants more local news or educational content, the piece favors transparent, content-neutral tools such as tax credits over license-based mandates.
Must-carry and retransmission-consent are likewise cast as artifacts of a 1990s cable bottleneck. With multiple distributors and direct-to-consumer options, carriage should be governed by private contracts and copyright. The current regime, the author says, drives costly disputes and blackouts and loads consumer bills through billions in retrans fees.
The proposed reform: auction spectrum with flexible-use rights, eliminate ownership caps and public-interest mandates, and rely on property, contract, and antitrust law so broadcasters can innovate and compete on equal footing.