FCC Deregulation Enables Sinclair Broadcasting Expansion

The Bush administration’s FCC under Chairman Michael Powell enabled massive media consolidation benefiting Sinclair Broadcasting through deregulation of ownership rules. The 2003 FCC vote to increase the national ownership cap from 35% to 45% particularly benefited Sinclair due to the UHF discount rule, which allowed stations on UHF frequencies to count as half their actual reach—most Sinclair stations were UHF. This regulatory framework enabled Sinclair to operate 62 television stations by 2004 and implement unprecedented conservative programming mandates including must-run segments like ‘Bottom Line with Boris’ 9 times per week and synchronized conservative scripts across all stations. Despite 700,000+ public comments opposing deregulation (99% opposed), Powell’s FCC prioritized corporate consolidation over media diversity. Congress later rolled back the cap to 39% in 2004 due to public outcry, but the UHF discount remained, creating the regulatory foundation that later enabled Sinclair’s attempted 2017 Tribune Media acquisition that would have reached 72% of U.S. households. The Bush-era deregulation transformed local news into centralized conservative messaging, with Sinclair using the trusted local news format for political propaganda through identical scripts and mandatory conservative commentary segments.