The FCC has opened an inquiry into Comcast and NBCUniversal’s treatment of broadcast affiliates, an investigation the company said in a statement Tuesday night it will “cooperate” with and “answer their questions.”
“We have received an inquiry from the FCC and will cooperate with them to answer their questions. We are proud that for many decades we have supported local broadcast TV stations with world-class sports and entertainment, enabling them to drive viewership in a media environment that has grown increasingly competitive. Local stations are a critical part of Americans’ lives as a trusted source for news and life-saving weather information, and we will continue to invest heavily in this partnership to keep the broadcast business strong,” the company said in a statement provided to TheWrap.
According to Newsmax, which first reported the investigation, Carr sent a letter to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts earlier Tuesday informing him that the FCC Media Bureau is investigating the company’s relationship with affiliates.
In the letter, Carr says that “federal law regulates the relationship between national programmers, like Comcast, and local broadcast TV stations” but says that for years “the FCC has stepped away from enforcing those regulations.”
It continues: “The FCC’s retreat has only encouraged large national programmers like yours to exercise more and more control over the operations of licensed local broadcast stations. This has created a clear tension between the many local broadcast stations across the country that want to serve their local communities and the interest of national programmers. The results speak for themselves. Americans no longer trust the national news outlets to report fully, accurately, and fairly. Indeed, a 2024 Gallup survey showed that only 31% of Americans
have a great deal or even a fair amount of trust in the mass media, which includes NBC.1 This is a historic low for your industry and represents a steady decline from a high of over 70%.”
The letter then goes on to reference a quote from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos about the current state of media.
Representatives for the FCC didn’t immediately respond to inquiries from TheWrap. Newsmax reports that the investigation seeks to determine if Comcast business practices undermine local stations’ public service obligations or independence.
“Not only does this raise localism concerns under the FCC’s statutory public interest standard, but it calls into question the extent to which some national programming networks are able to influence station operations,” Carr wrote in a portion of the letter. “It also calls into question whether various terms of network affiliation agreements could unduly inhibit the ability of local broadcast TV.”
It’s not clear what — if anything — prompted the investigation. But it comes amid the larger context of the Trump administration’s larger attacks on independent media, which Carr has doggedly championed. It’s also not the first investigation of NBCU or Comcast under Carr’s FCC. He opened an investigation of the company in February for what he termed “promotion of DEI.”
Lucas Manfredi contributed to this report.
