Foreign Ownership of US Broadcast Stations Suddenly the Rage?

[Commentary] In the last two days, the Federal Communications Commission has asked for public comment on two proposals for foreign ownership of US broadcast stations where that ownership would exceed 25% of the company – a limit that has for decades been seen as the upper end of ownership by foreign nationals.

While the FCC three years ago said that they would consider such ownership on a case by case basis, up until this week, the FCC had considered only one case under this new flexible policy – and that was the case of Pandora, where the FCC took over a year to approve their acquisition of a broadcast station – and Pandora didn’t even think that their foreign ownership exceeded the 25% threshold, but they could not prove it because of the difficulty of assessing the citizenship of public companies. Now, the FCC seeks comments on two cases, one where an Australian husband and wife team seek to acquire 100% ownership of companies owning 29 radio and TV stations in Alaska, Arkansas and Texas. The second involves Univision, which asks for FCC approval for foreign ownership of up to 49% of its stock, as it plans a public offering which would also involve the conversion to stock of warrants held by a Mexican company that already has a stake in the company.