Connoisseur Media CEO Jeffrey Warshaw sat down with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr earlier this week, pressing the agency’s top official to move decisively on radio ownership limit reform as the agency continues to ponder the long-delayed 2022 Quadrennial Review.
According to an ex parte filing submitted to the Commission by Connoisseur counsel David Oxenford of Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP, Warshaw urged Carr to move quickly on relaxing radio ownership rules, warning that inaction risks local radio suffering the same fate as the newspaper industry. Warshaw argued that over-the-air radio does not operate in an isolated market; it competes daily against digital platforms and other local media, and that the rules governing it have not kept pace with that reality.
The filing cites a sharp deterioration in radio’s competitive position over the past decade, with radio’s share of both listening time and local advertising revenue cut roughly in half. Meanwhile, the local advertising share captured by out-of-market digital competitors has grown substantially, and time spent with digital audio now exceeds traditional radio listening.
The meeting with Carr is the latest step in a sustained lobbying effort Warshaw has waged at the FCC.
In January, Connoisseur joined a coalition of broadcasters, including Townsquare Media, Bonneville, and Midwest Communications, in filing joint reply comments calling for the elimination of the Local Radio Ownership Rule altogether. Last month, Warshaw filed additional comments in the proceeding, arguing that Spotify’s AI-driven Prompted Playlist feature, which blends music and podcasts into a single product, proves digital audio platforms compete directly with broadcast radio, making the case for repealing ownership caps outright.
Warshaw’s push for deregulation has run alongside an aggressive acquisition strategy that has tested the boundaries of the current rules.
Connoisseur won an FCC waiver to close on Bonneville International’s Bay Area cluster last month, and is seeking an even broader waiver in Lincoln, NE, where a deal to acquire NRG Media’s local cluster would give Connoisseur ownership of all 11 commercially rated stations in the market, based on Fall 2025 ratings.
