The full FCC has rejected a broadcaster’s appeal of a Media Bureau decision denying reconsideration of a New Jersey AM radio station’s license cancellation, said an order Tuesday. The Media Bureau ruled in 2024 that Forsythe Broadcasting’s license for WNJC Washington Township was automatically canceled because the station had been off the air for more than a year without seeking FCC permission to temporarily go silent. Forsythe had argued that its silence was due to economic complications from the COVID-19 pandemic and the expiration of the lease to its transmitter site. In its application for review asking the commissioners to overturn the bureau's decision, Forsythe repeated the same previously rejected arguments, said Tuesday’s order. “We deny the AFR because Forsythe has failed again to demonstrate the Station’s silence is the result of circumstances beyond its control. Therefore, we decline to exercise our discretion in this situation to reinstate the Station’s license.”

E.W. Scripps’ board of directors has adopted a “poison pill” shareholder rights plan intended to prevent Sinclair from buying the company (see 2511240049), according to a news release Wednesday. “The rights plan is intended to protect shareholders from coercive tactics and to provide the board with time to thoroughly evaluate the offer and any other potential strategic alternatives,” it said. In an emailed statement, Sinclair said, “Given the family control of Scripps, the only effect of adopting a poison pill is to limit liquidity opportunities for public shareholders of Scripps.”

A recent social media post from President Donald Trump condemning proposals to lift the national TV ownership cap doesn’t definitively spell disaster for broadcasters, said New Street analyst Blair Levin in a note to subscribers Tuesday. Trump’s post was focused on preventing ABC and NBC from growing (see 2511240055), but that isn’t a likely consequence of lifting the cap, Levin wrote. “One should not assume that the President understands what he is talking about when it comes to this post, or that it is a deeply held point of view, as it relates to law and process.”

Connoisseur Media asked the FCC this week to issue a declaratory ruling allowing a subsidiary to be up to 100% foreign-owned to allow investments from Cayman Island-based investment funds and to allow a U.K. citizen -- Connoisseur CFO Oliver Price -- to hold a noncontrolling interest in the company. Approval of the petition will provide Connoisseur “with greater access to capital, thereby enabling it to better compete in the media marketplace,” the filing said.

The FCC’s news distortion rule “has become a loaded gun that allows the FCC to ‘regulate by raised eyebrow,’” wrote former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler in a letter published Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal. He pointed out that a number of Republicans who served at the FCC joined with Democrats, including former Chairman Tom Wheeler, in a recent petition (see 2511130052) calling on the agency to revoke the policy. “Two-thirds of the signatories are red-blooded Republicans who have always believed the government has no business policing the media for bias or balance,” wrote Fowler, who chaired the commission under former President Ronald Reagan. He said Carr has “brandished” the news distortion policy “to stifle content he deems unfair” to President Donald Trump. “The press that uses air and electrons must be as free of Washington censors as the press that uses paper and ink.”

The Democracy Forward Foundation has asked a federal court to compel the FCC to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests for emails and messages from Chairman Brendan Carr and his staff related to the agency's actions against media companies. “DFF filed FOIA requests to shed light on the actions and priorities of FCC leadership, particularly given the agency’s use of its authority to restrain protected speech and expression,” said the complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

PBS didn’t air the BBC documentary that was the focus of recent letters from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a PBS spokesperson told us Friday. Carr sent letters last week to PBS, NPR and the BBC seeking information about whether a BBC documentary on the Jan. 6 riot aired in the U.S. and warning of possible FCC enforcement action (see 2511200061). President Donald Trump threatened legal action over the documentary, and the BBC apologized for misleading edits in it. “We did not air any of the video in question and have replied to the FCC with that information,” the PBS spokesperson said.

The FCC doesn’t have the authority to do away with the national broadcast-ownership cap or waive it on a case-by-case basis, said Vanderbilt Law School professor Brian Fitzpatrick in a Nov. 3 letter posted Tuesday in docket 17-318. Fitzpatrick’s filing was amplified in a news release from Newsmax, which has opposed eliminating the cap. "Congress forced the Commission to adopt the 39% ownership cap in the 2004 amendments to the Telecommunications Act and further commanded that any entity that grew beyond that number must divest in a timely manner,” wrote Fitzpatrick. “The Commission cannot ‘waive’ these statutory commands. Nor can it circumvent them by manipulating the UHF discount or permitting sidecar deals.”

Nexstar and Tegna have filed transfer of control applications with the FCC to begin the regulatory review of their proposed $6.2 billion deal, Nexstar said in a news release Tuesday. The deal would put Nexstar over the national TV ownership cap, and the applications include requests for waivers of the cap and other FCC ownership rules, the release said. “The applications address why, if certain of the FCC's rules governing television ownership remain in effect, waiver of the rules would serve the public interest, especially in the local communities Nexstar's stations will serve.” The FCC's authority to waive the cap was disputed in a recent ex parte filing (see 2511180049)

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr echoed President Donald Trump’s call Saturday for NBC late-night host Seth Meyers to be fired and posted a picture with Trump the next day. On Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said Meyers is suffering from an “incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome" and called his show a ratings disaster. “Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote.