This seems shortsighted by these companies. A jury trial is way more expensive and public with a chance of paying as much or more fines anyway. Sure it takes longer to get a ruling, but that seems like a small win.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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Maybe they're betting that the telcos have more money for their legal departments than the FCC does. I wonder though if it's true that a jury can award damages in excess of the requested amount in the case of regulatory fines the same way juries can when deciding civil suits for damages. Maybe.
This is purely about stripping power from federal agencies.
I doubt that we'll see any result that benefits the people.
Honestly, I would support total broadcast anarchy over our current state of affairs.
Without the FCC, whoever has the loudest transmitter wins. But actually look at the state of over-the-air broadcasts today. The radio stations have all been bought up and monopolized by a handful of companies like iHeartMedia. The broadcast TV stations are also similarly consolidated. Look at all the countless Sinclair stations pumping out endless right wing propaganda.
Frankly, I would prefer complete anarchy over this. Fines are how the FCC enforces its rules. Without any enforcement, broadcast regulation effectively ceases to exist. At that point, anyone can broadcast whatever they want, and the loudest transmitter wins. Now, maybe you don't have the budget to build a transmitter that can completely overpower a major commercial radio station. But if that station is several miles away, you could set up a pirate radio station that would drown out a larger commercial station in your local area.
This is a case where deregulation absolutely would help the people. The broadcast network we have is so hopelessly corrupt that burning the whole thing down would be a massive improvement. I'll take total anarchy over media monopolies owned by right-wing billionaires.
The problem is that at the point the FCC isn't enforcing things by fine, if you do set up a broadcast antenna, the stations (or as you aptly said, the conglomerates) can sue you for blocking their signal, because they have a contract that says they "own" those bands. And they'll sue you for loss of income, because if they sell less stuff by way of ads, they get less ads in the future, and then it's all downhill.
The big challenge is, most people now watch TV either through walled-garden streaming platforms (when was the last time you watched an IPTV or IceCast stream?), cable, or satellite.
Radio might have a hope if you can get it out there, but most of that has been captured by Spotify. It's an ongoing point of contention between my fiancee and me, because I like listening to terrestrial radio and believe that shortwave and HAM are the voices of the people, plus I listen to shoutcast / icecast "stations" regularly, and she pays for Spotify. I can't think of the last time she used the radio built into the infotainment deck in her car instead of beaming her phone to it.