One of the more ironic things that has happened in my life was discussing pit space inside commodity pits on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Pit space was valuable. It was also supply-constrained. That meant the line for the elasticity of supply was steep.
Chicago Booth professor Merton Miller often chastised my fellow traders and me. “You guys are the supposed last bastion of capitalism, yet you won’t auction off pit space, which might be one of the most valuable things here.”
In the media, spectrum is one of the most valuable assets. It is just like a trading floor.
The mainstream media outlets were given free spectrum in the 1940s. Television was a new technology. Before that, their radio frequencies were given free spectrum. In the 1910s and 20s, radio was the new technology.
Why?
Public resource with obligations: The airwaves are considered public property. Licenses were granted at no (or very low) upfront cost to the government in exchange for broadcasters serving the public interest—providing news, entertainment, education, and local programming, with rules like the Fairness Doctrine (later repealed) and children’s programming requirements.
Technology has leapt forward. The old mainstream media is not needed to spread, report or do anything with news to make sure our First Amendment rights are secure. The idea that they are the “fourth estate”, left the world sometime in the 1970s.
As a matter of record, the media is incredibly biased and one-sided in its reporting of the news. It no longer serves the public interest, but serves itself. That includes public television and public radio.
The free allocation of spectrum also helped ABC, CBS, and NBC create dynasties and monopsonies. Upstarts like the Dumont Network couldn’t get traction. The US auctioned off spectrum, reallocating it starting in the 1990s through 2010.
It is time to force the major networks to bid for their spectrum in an open auction format.
An auction will create more competition. We should prize competition in the US. Make the monopsonies compete.
Having to pay for their own spectrum will dramatically change their costs of doing business. That will change who they target as their market, and it will also make them less dominant when it comes to influence on the airwaves.
Making them compete differently might rejigger the way they report the news as well. Instead of an organization like CBS claiming there was a Russia plot to elect Trump in 2016, then saying the election was totally fine in 2020, and now denying that the Chinese were trying to actively influence our elections in 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026, they might change their tune.
I saw an Alex Berenson tweet this morning. He put it best when it comes to US elections. “Trump lost “unfair and square” - the 2020 election was not rigged, but the media did what it could to hurt him, including badly exaggerating Covid’s risks to try to keep the country afraid and in lockdown. It worked, barely.”
I might dispute Alex a bit. Biden’s 81MM votes surely seem like a statistical outlier when you look at winning vote totals over the course of time. I don’t believe there are fat tails in political statistical distributions like there are in stock market statistical distributions. Political statistical distributions are normally distributed.
Making the monopsony compete for spectrum will also change the US Deep State. They run cover for the Deep State now by reporting or not reporting what the Deep State wants. With competition, that ends. The Deep State loses its media air cover.
Remember, it is not just elections. We are competing with China. If you think communists play fair, you are stupid or totally naive.
Rediscovering America’s founding spirit of competition will help us preserve our country against forces like the CCP. Auctioning off spectrum to the Big 3 and forcing them to compete is just the start. But it’s a good start.
The actual holders of the licenses are in many cases not the national networks. From Grok:
If you're asking for the companies that hold the licenses and own/operate the majority of broadcast TV stations, here is a summary of the largest U.S. broadcast television station group owners (based on recent data; the landscape changes with mergers):Top Broadcast TV Station Group OwnersNexstar Media Group — The largest by far. Owns or operates ~200+ stations (including recent acquisitions like TEGNA) across 100+ markets, reaching a significant portion of U.S. households.
nexstar.tv
Gray Television — One of the largest, with stations in many markets (often smaller and mid-sized).
Sinclair Broadcast Group — Owns or operates a large number of stations (historically ~180+), known for local affiliations and some centralized content.
TEGNA — Major operator (now tied to Nexstar via acquisition in some reports); focuses on local news stations.
tegna.com
E.W. Scripps Company — Owns many local stations.
Network O&Os (Owned-and-Operated stations):Fox Television Stations (Fox Corp.)
NBC Owned Television Stations (Comcast/NBCUniversal)
ABC Owned Television Stations (Disney)
CBS Television Stations (Paramount Global)
Others — Hearst Television, Allen Media Group, TelevisaUnivision, and various smaller or independent groups.
These companies (or their subsidiaries) are the licensees named on FCC authorizations for the stations. Networks like ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox own stations primarily in large markets (their "O&Os"), while most local stations are affiliates owned by the groups above.
davebusiek.substack.com
I agree that putting this spectrum up for auction would be a good idea. Note that a lot of opposition would come from the media companies that have licenses for small and mid sized markets where over the air television is still a thing.
Spot on and I've been calling for this for years as mainstream media in America has become so much more liberal and biased and it fell on deaf ears until this Administration. A lot of ideas are being discussed, and an open auction is one of those. There also needs to be more punishment for the inexcusable and unacceptable conduct of cnn, abc and nbc (at this point, I don't even know if they deserve to be capitalized) not covering the President last night for strictly political reasons and their agendas.
With respect to the election vote totals, on the one hand, there was an unprecedented push, because of the pandemic, to get as many people to vote absentee ballot as possible. More importantly, because of the pandemic, one would think voter turnout would be less, rather than more, and to see one candidate get 81 million votes is more than a statistical abnormality, it is literally an indication of cheating, no matter what anyone else says.
There has been a big push behind the scenes with many members of the administration and support staff to address the media problem and do not be surprised to see more major legislation and more major changes take place in the next two and a half years than have taken place in the past two and a half decades.