Affirmatively Expand Permissible Foreign Ownership

The Federal Communications Commission has the opportunity to reduce barriers to foreign investment in the US communications marketplace. Let's seize this moment!

The Communications Act already affords the FCC the flexibility to relax restrictions on foreign investment in certain radio licensees, including broadcast and commercial wireless. Specifically, current law prohibits greater than 25 percent of foreign investment in a US entity that controls, directly or indirectly, a US radio licensee, but only if the public interest would be served by the FCC refusing or revoking a license. In other words, the FCC is free to permit a higher foreign limit or waive the limit altogether, which was confirmed in the FCC's unanimous November 2013 Declaratory Ruling. Disappointingly, the FCC declined, at that time, to make such a positive step, deciding only to confirm that requests from current or prospective broadcast licensees seeking approval for foreign investment above the threshold would be considered on a case-by-case basis. What we need is to get the ball rolling by setting rules and policies that affirmatively permit foreign ownership above the 25 percent cap once and for all.

US companies, especially smaller ones, stand to benefit from new sources of capital necessary in the super-challenging, ever-changing, consumer-centric, competitive environment that is the US marketplace. And the FCC’s reluctance to be receptive to greater foreign investment has been used as an excuse by other nations to retain indefensible trade barriers that harm US companies.