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.
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.
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.
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.
This is way outside my areas of expertise, but I would think there are folks on or around Trump's team (e.g., Bessent, but there are numerous other guys with deep business and markets experience) who can come up with a better scheme somewhere between leaving it as-is and throwing it open for pure market redistribution. Off the top of my head, ideas could include something that caps the market share or otherwise limits consolidation, or something closer to the way(s) other bandwidth is allocated, or maybe "term limits", or even objective restrictions and boundaries on use and wealth-extraction from these public resources (similar to restrictions on land, water, et al.). I don't think it has to be super-complicated to be better than the current archaic arrangement.
Personally I would like a requirement that every owner of a piece of the spectrum has to ensure at least one station in each viewing area is running C-Span OTA.
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.
I support auctioning off the spectrum, but before this is done, first it must be gamed out how the communists will manipulate the auction, then anti-communist controls must be put in place prior to the auction.
Echoing our genius Founding Fathers, what are the checks and balances needed on this auction to serve and keep We The People free?
Communists hate performance metrics, so that’s where, at minimum, I would start. Then once strict performance metrics to ensure freedom of speech are in place, I would place limited time spans on auction winners access to our spectrum. Meeting performance metric reviews should be required for any winner to enter the next auction. Squander your auction win by being anti-American, then you no longer get to bid on any future auctions, ever.
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.
This is way outside my areas of expertise, but I would think there are folks on or around Trump's team (e.g., Bessent, but there are numerous other guys with deep business and markets experience) who can come up with a better scheme somewhere between leaving it as-is and throwing it open for pure market redistribution. Off the top of my head, ideas could include something that caps the market share or otherwise limits consolidation, or something closer to the way(s) other bandwidth is allocated, or maybe "term limits", or even objective restrictions and boundaries on use and wealth-extraction from these public resources (similar to restrictions on land, water, et al.). I don't think it has to be super-complicated to be better than the current archaic arrangement.
Personally I would like a requirement that every owner of a piece of the spectrum has to ensure at least one station in each viewing area is running C-Span OTA.
Caps can become price ceilings, distorting the market and true cost
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.
I support auctioning off the spectrum, but before this is done, first it must be gamed out how the communists will manipulate the auction, then anti-communist controls must be put in place prior to the auction.
Echoing our genius Founding Fathers, what are the checks and balances needed on this auction to serve and keep We The People free?
Communists hate performance metrics, so that’s where, at minimum, I would start. Then once strict performance metrics to ensure freedom of speech are in place, I would place limited time spans on auction winners access to our spectrum. Meeting performance metric reviews should be required for any winner to enter the next auction. Squander your auction win by being anti-American, then you no longer get to bid on any future auctions, ever.
Good to see you’re back to your common sense postings based on your experience as a trader. Sometimes there are silver linings in rain clouds.