Some government regulations become outdated. Others become absurd. The FCC’s national television ownership cap has become both. For decades, Washington barred local television broadcast groups from reaching more than 39% of American households. The rule was designed for a media world from the last century, when viewers had limited options, a small number of networks dominated, and audiences had nowhere else to turn.

That world no longer exists.

Americans now get news, information and entertainment from countless sources, including YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X and traditional television. They consume content from global companies with market capitalizations larger than the gross domestic product of most countries.

And where are those companies headquartered? On the coasts, from New York to San Francisco. They do not care about the middle of the country. They do not cover it. They do not reflect it.

Last month, several national TV networks refused to air President Donald Trump’s primetime address on foreign adversaries meddling in American elections. That is the media establishment in action, with coastal elites deciding what Americans are allowed to see.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is fighting back.

The commission recently advanced an order to repeal the national cap, signaling that it is finally prepared to confront one of the most indefensible media rules still on the books. The move matters because ownership limits shape how broadcasters can raise capital, expand service and compete with larger national and digital platforms that face very different constraints.

If Congress proposed capping Netflix at 39% of American households tomorrow, it would be laughed out of the room. But when the same limit is applied to broadcasters, Washington’s regulatory class acts as if it makes perfect sense.

The national cap is not a free-market policy, a conservative policy or even a serious competition policy. It is government picking winners and losers, tying one set of competitors down while everyone else runs free.

That is exactly the kind of government distortion conservatives have spent decades fighting.

Defenders of the cap act as if the internet never happened. Their arguments are self-serving and frozen in time. They warn about broadcasters growing too large while shrugging at trillion-dollar Big Tech companies that dominate digital advertising, online video and the modern flow of information. They worry about local television stations while giving a free pass to companies with global reach and unchecked power.

The media marketplace has changed beyond recognition. The rules governing broadcasters have not.

Carr’s FCC is prepared to fix that.

Repealing the cap will not give broadcasters a special favor. It will remove a government-imposed handicap. Broadcasters will still have to compete, win viewers, attract advertisers and produce content people actually want to watch. They will simply do so under rules that reflect modern reality, not assumptions from a dead era.

Modernizing these rules will not solve every problem facing local television. But it would remove a government-made barrier that serves no meaningful public-interest purpose and has drawn renewed scrutiny at a time when policymakers are reevaluating how legacy media rules fit alongside streaming and digital distribution. It will give local broadcasters the ability to push back against coastal elites and deliver the news Americans actually deserve to hear, not what is filtered through a New York newsroom.

Carr deserves major credit for finally forcing this relic of media policy into the real world.