Editorial: Changing the Rules

The FCC is expected this week to circulate the long-awaited and overdue quadrennial review of its media ownership rules.

The Wheeler FCC has signaled it may try to restore the TV-station joint sales agreement-tightening rule that a court threw out, done primarily because the commission tightened it before issuing the quadrennial review.

We hope that is not the case.

The FCC should also scrap its newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule without unleashing the 800-pound gorilla of daily print on the defenseless web (irony alert).

The agency could even loosen station duopoly rules in smaller markets, where combining assets might strengthen them as competitors.