Hi everyone,
Last week, the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing the FCC to loosen ownership restrictions on local media, partly on the grounds that the long-standing restrictions no longer served the public interest.
You can read the article here: https://www.reuters.com/article/BigStory12/idUSKBN2BO5S4
On one hand, one could argue that the restrictions that were relaxed in this case did not significantly prevent certain media conglomerates from establishing near-oligopolies on today’s media market; it remains to be seen whether relaxing these rules will significantly alter the media landscape that exists in the United States. Given the precarious state of print media, however, one could also argue that loosening these restrictions allows parent companies to make acquisitions that allow smaller outlets to survive, albeit at the cost of greater consolidation. I was surprised that the Supreme Court unanimously decided in favour of the FCC in a 9-0 judgment.