Financial Interest and Syndication Rules

The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, i.e., fin-syn rules, were a set of rules imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the United States television industry in 1970.

The FCC sought to prevent the Big Three television networks from monopolizing the broadcast landscape by preventing them from owning any of the programming that they aired in prime time. The rules effectively prohibited networks from airing syndicated television shows they had a financial stake in, leading the networks to spin off their syndicated divisions, such as CBS' CBS Enterprises, which was renamed Viacom in 1971 and spun off; ABC's ABC Films, which was sold to its five executives in March, 1973, and later renamed Worldvision Enterprises; and NBC's syndicated division NBC Films, which was sold to National Telefilm Associates (NTA) in March, 1973, for $7.5 million.

As part of deregulation, the agency's commissioners voted to eliminate the rules in 1993.