Media Action Center is a nonprofit group of concerned residents throughout the United States led by former Emmy-winning broadcaster turned media democracy advocate Sue Wilson. We successfully influence policy at the Federal Communications Commission and at local TV and Radio stations throughout the country to ensure We the People are truly served by Our publicly owned airwaves. MAC has joined a current Petition to Deny the broadcast licenses of DISNEY ABC at the FCC to ensure We the People have a seat at our Public Interest table. In 2017, MAC forced Entercom to give up its $13.5 million license to KDND for killing a woman in a radio water drinking stunt. That same year MAC empowered local listeners across the country to take Alex Jones off their local radio dials. In 2000, we informed the Supreme Court in FCC v Prometheus Radio that multiple local TV stations with one corporate owner merely duplicate news stories on all its stations; a similar methodology is currently being used in legal cases trying to prevent the Nexstar/TEGNA merger.

Find full journalistic coverage of all this plus Sinclair Broadcasting's shell game and other public interest media issues at SueWilsonReports.com. See also Wilson's documentary "Broadcast Blues" which is more relevant today than when it premiered in 2009. Broadcast Blues.

Media Action Center Cited by FCC in Decision to Limit Licenseship in a Single TV Market

 December 26, 2023

The Federal Communications Commission has made its final rulings in its Quadrennial Regulatory Review.  To the dismay of the broadcast industry, the FCC has ruled that a broadcaster cannot automatically expect to license two Top-Four (Network affiliate) stations in the same TV market without getting FCC approval in advance.

Says the FCC, "... a broadcaster cannot acquire two stations ranked in the top four in audience share in a market—known as the Top-Four Prohibition—unless, at the request of an applicant, the Commission finds that such an acquisition serves the public interest, convenience, and necessity on a case-by-case basis."

Media Action Center provided both the FCC and the Supreme Court with photographic evidence that in TV markets where Station groups license two Network affiliates in the same town, those licensees are merely putting the same news content on both Network stations, rather than providing "more and better local news" as they had promised.

Many other Media Reform groups, lawyers, and academics contributed to this success. We are grateful that our combined efforts brought this matter to a successful conclusion for We the People.