Duopoly (broadcasting) - in The United States

In The United States

See also: List of television duopolies in the United States

In the United States, the practice of duopoly has been frowned upon when using public airwaves, on the premise that it gives too much influence to one company. However, rules governing radio stations are less restrictive than those for TV, allowing as many as six radio stations under common ownership in the largest US markets.

Duopolies were normally not allowed to television stations with overlapping coverage areas in the United States before 2001. The Federal Communications Commission currently allows common ownership of two stations in a single market only if there are eight unique station owners left in the market once the duopoly is formed (making them not allowed in any market with fewer than nine full-power stations, counting non-commercial stations), and a duopoly cannot be formed between two of the four highest-rated stations in a market.

The use of digital subchannels has been termed an "instant duopoly" because of the ease by which a single digital station can deliver multiple channels of programming from different networks into the same market at the same time. One station can carry four or more standard definition digital channels. (Multiple HDTV feeds are typically too large to be carried on different subchannels of the same station simultaneously without loss of image quality.)

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