With a Republican majority at the FCC just days away, broadcast media regulations are not sacred, but “profane cows,” and Commissioner Nathan Simington says those legacy policies, “Are ones that we’re lining up for the slaughterhouse.”
Simington, speaking in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation, emphasized that legacy broadcast policies are among the first to face potential elimination as part of Chairman Brendan Carr’s sweeping “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative.
With Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks set to step down before the Commission’s June open meeting, Republicans will soon hold a 2–1 majority, enabling the GOP to accelerate deregulatory efforts without Democratic opposition.
Simington pointed to the antiquated nature of many broadcast rules, dating back to the Truman and Nixon administrations. “They’re from an era when broadcast media was the only form of telecom media that most people had access to. Obviously, that has changed radically,” he said. He noted that streaming subscriptions surpassed cable for the first time in 2023, altering the media landscape and, in his view, undermining the rationale for heavy regulation. “Broadcasters are not in the same kind of economic and cultural positions that they once were.”
It was Simington who first spilled the beans about broadcast deregulation in early March at the 2025 NAB State Leadership Conference.
As questions swirl around the FCC’s independence, Simington said, “Unless it’s something that’s been directly mandated by Congress or where we have clear direction from the West Wing that the President wants it to stay, we should consider deleting, deleting, deleting it.”
Those remarks will do nothing to quell concerns that the agency is becoming “weaponized” for partisan purposes, like those of Commissioner Anna Gomez. Gomez, soon to become the FCC’s lone Democrat, is bringing her First Amendment Tour to Los Angeles on May 28. The event, titled Public Interest in Free Speech: A Conversation with FCC Commissioner Gomez, will stream live from California State University, Los Angeles, and marks the tour’s first appearance outside Washington.
Gomez began the tour earlier this year to highlight growing concerns over federal encroachment on press freedom and editorial independence. Her efforts have gained urgency following Donald Trump’s return to the White House. “This effort is about defending the First Amendment from those who use it as a weapon against the very freedoms it protects,” Gomez said. “We must continue to stand up for free expression and push back against the Administration’s growing campaign of censorship and control.”
