The FCC has decided who owns the news is less important than who gets interviewed on The View. That is the takeaway from a new ruling that lets three sovereign wealth funds controlled by foreign governments take nearly half of Paramount-Warner Bros., waving past the agency’s own limits on foreign ownership of American broadcasters.
Brendan Carr’s FCC is more worried about who The View interviews than foreign governments owning Paramount.
The ruling allows Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi to hold 49.5 percent of Paramount-Warner Bros., each one run by a government. The FCC waived its rule limiting foreign equity ownership to 25 percent to let this happen. The agency defended the decision, saying that because the stocks being purchased do not have voting rights, they “will not be able to wield any influence, let alone control, over decisions involving the Licensees.”
Waiver Math
The math is straightforward. Three sovereign wealth funds will hold 49.5 percent of Paramount-Warner Bros., each one run by a government. The FCC waived its rule limiting foreign equity ownership to 25 percent to let this happen.
The FCC’s stated reasoning rests entirely on the nature of the shares themselves. Because the stocks being purchased do not carry voting rights, the agency argued, the funds “will not be able to wield any influence, let alone control, over decisions involving the Licensees.”
That distinction matters legally, but it does not settle the question of influence. A company whose board is filled with people who owe their jobs to foreign governments can still act in ways that benefit those governments, even without formal control. The FCC appears to have concluded that the distinction between influence and control is enough to justify the waiver.
Free Press Pushes Back
Not everyone agrees. Free Press, a nonprofit focused on media access and accountability, opposed the move. Its statement captured the worry many Americans feel about foreign governments owning major American news outlets:
“Control over for-profit, commercial domestic news media by any government is an extraordinary situation that would surely strike most Americans as unseemly, precisely because of the utility of the news media as a propaganda tool for those governments.”
The group’s position is that foreign government ownership of American media is inherently suspect, regardless of whether those governments hold voting shares. The distinction the FCC relies on — no votes means no control — is not persuasive to critics who see the broader picture.
Gomez’s Dissent
Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, went further. She posted on X that the decision hands influence to some of the world’s most repressive governments:
“The FCC just let some of the most repressive governments in the world indirectly control nearly all of a combined Paramount-Warner Bros. An investment this large in one of America’s biggest media companies doesn’t just buy equity, it secures influence over what gets said and made.”
Gomez’s point is that the money buys influence even if it does not buy votes. A government that owns a significant share of a major studio can shape what stories get told, what movies get made, and what news gets aired. That influence is real, even if it does not appear in the corporate governance documents.
Ownership vs. Interviews
The irony is that the FCC spends its time trying to control what American broadcasters say, while refusing to control who owns them. The agency has spent years threatening ABC and attempting to block stations from airing interviews with Democrats. Yet when it comes to who controls the companies that produce that content, the FCC waves foreign ownership limits aside.
The contrast is striking. On one hand, the FCC has been aggressive about policing what American broadcasters say and show. On the other hand, it has been willing to waive its own rules on foreign ownership. The two positions sit side by side, and neither one explains the other.
The FCC’s argument is that the two issues are unrelated. Ownership through shares that carry no voting rights does not give foreign governments control over the content of American broadcasting, the agency says, because the shares carry no votes.
The Case Against Foreign Ownership
Critics have several arguments against foreign government ownership of American media. Here is how they break down:
- Propaganda Risk: Foreign governments can use media as a propaganda tool. A government-owned studio can push narratives that favor its interests, whether through news coverage or entertainment programming.
- Influence Without Control: Even without voting rights, a government investor can exert influence through board appointments, executive pressure, and the hiring of executives who owe their loyalty to the foreign owner.
- Public Trust: Americans expect their news media to be independent. When a major broadcaster is partly owned by a foreign government, the public loses trust in the impartiality of that news.
- National Security: Media companies have access to sensitive information and can shape public opinion on national issues. Foreign ownership raises questions about whether a company’s decisions serve American interests or foreign ones.
Each of these concerns exists independently of whether the shares carry votes. The absence of voting rights removes one form of control, but it does not remove the ability of a foreign government to shape the company’s direction through other means.
The FCC’s Argument Rests on Shares Alone
The FCC’s argument is narrow and technical. It rests entirely on the legal status of the shares being purchased. Since the funds are buying shares that carry no voting rights, the FCC says, they cannot control the company. That reasoning is consistent with the letter of the law, but it does not address the broader concern about influence.
The agency has not addressed the worry that ownership of this scale can still shape the direction of a company. The ruling does not engage with the idea that influence can exist without control, and it does not explain why the FCC is comfortable with foreign governments owning nearly half of one of America’s largest media companies.
Where This Leaves the FCC
The FCC has now waived its own rule in a case involving a major merger. The decision lets three sovereign wealth funds hold 49.5 percent of Paramount-Warner Bros. The agency’s reasoning is that the shares carry no voting rights, so the funds cannot control the company.
The FCC’s position is that the distinction between influence and control is enough to justify the waiver. Critics disagree, and the debate is likely to continue. The FCC has made its call, and the funds will now proceed with their investment.
The question of whether the FCC’s reasoning holds up in practice remains open. The ruling applies to this specific transaction, and it does not establish a precedent for future cases. Each merger and acquisition will need to be evaluated on its own terms.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs neither side on this one — it backs narrow oversight aimed at actual harm rather than a broad rulebook that favors the big player, and here the FCC itself has waved away its own limit with no clear justification beyond protecting The View’s interview lineup. The FCC’s reasoning rests on a technical distinction between voting rights and control, but the paper’s position is that foreign government ownership of American broadcasters deserves scrutiny aimed at the harm it could cause, not a blanket exception for every deal.
The paper’s approach to regulation is to oppose rules that protect the biggest players and raise the cost of entry for small ones, while accepting oversight where a business directly harms people or the environment. The FCC’s waiver does not fit either part of that test. It is a broad exception to a rule designed to prevent foreign control, justified by a distinction that critics say ignores real influence.
What the paper would want instead is a narrow, targeted standard that looks at the actual risk of influence — board appointments, executive pressure, hiring loyalty — rather than a vote-counting exercise. The reader should watch for the FCC to explain how it measures influence, not just control, before approving deals this large.
Source material: “Brendan Carr’s FCC is more worried about who The View interviews than foreign governments owning Paramount,” The Verge.
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