George Soros closer to controlling 200 radio stations despite objection from Trump-nominated FCC commissioner
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seemingly approved a deal that would "fast-track" left-wing billionaire George Soros’ acquisition of more than 200 Audacy radio stations across America, irking a Republican commissioner who "objected."
The New York Post first reported that the FCC last week "adopted an order to approve Soros’ purchase of more than 200 radio stations in 40 markets just weeks before the presidential election," potentially allowing the far-left kingmaker to reach more than 165 million Americans at a critical time.
"The FCC decision came after a partisan vote with the commission’s three Democrats voting for the move while the two Republicans voted against it, sources added," Post reporter Lydia Moynihan wrote.
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"Under existing FCC rules, foreign company ownership of US radio stations is not supposed to exceed 25%. Soros took foreign investment to make his bid and then made a filing asking the commission to make an exception to the usual review process, according to public documents," Moynihan added. "The FCC decision to fast-track his deal is the first time in modern history such a deal has been approved by the full Commission without first running the national security review process—a process that could take up to a year or more."
The Soros group told the Post they would circle back to the FCC in the near future to run that process. If the deal goes through, Soros would be considered a "major shareholder," but not necessarily the "owner" of the stations.
An FCC spokesperson told Fox News Digital that "no decision is final until the Commission releases it, which we have not."
"The Commission has a long-standing process for reviewing transactions that involve emergence from bankruptcy," the spokesperson added, noting that the application before the Commission pertains to a transfer from Audacy in bankruptcy, to Audacy post-bankruptcy.
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Some inside the FCC object to the notion the move was some sort of shortcut or "fast-tracked" for Soros, pointing to a similar process used to under the previous administration in the bankruptcy proceedings of Cumulus Media in 2018, iHeart Media in 2019, Liberman Television in 2019, Fusion Connect in 2019, Windstream Holdings in 2020, America-CV Station Group in 2021, and Alpha Media in 2021.
However, Trump-nominated Commissioner Nathan Simington blasted the process and said it was, indeed, fast-tracked.
"The FCC has a practice of permitting entities temporarily to exceed foreign ownership caps when emerging from bankruptcy—and the majority, over my objection, did so here. But that wasn’t the only way in which this item was ‘fast-tracked,’" Simington told Fox News Digital.
"Commission leadership tried to approve the item at the staff level, with nothing but a 48-hour notice to Commissioners on a summer Friday. There is almost no factual record on the item because there was almost no attempt to do a real public interest analysis," Simington continued. "Not a single Commissioner outside of the Chairwoman was invited to even think about the issue until staff was directed to handle it on our behalf without our votes. That’s the true ‘fast-track.’"
Commissioner Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, previously expressed concern about a Soros-backed group taking control of Audacy.
"This Soros-backed group is looking to buy the second-largest radio station group in the country… some of them are in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. The vast majority are probably music or sports, but there are a handful in those states that carry conservative talk radio," Carr said on Fox News Channel’s "The Ingraham Angle."
"There is a concern," Carr added. "The FCC should not be creating this special Soros shortcut."
Soros handed control of his political empire last year to his son, Alex, and his various organizations have continued to exert significant financial influence, including millions of dollars aimed at flipping Texas to Democrats.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.