Feds Leave Broadcasters Alone in FCC Media Ownership Appeal
The federal govt. won’t join a request that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn a lower court decision rejecting FCC action to ease media ownership limits, officials confirmed. The decision by the U.S. Solicitor Gen. (SG) and the FCC not to appeal is said to make it highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will hear the case.
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“The ball is now back in the FCC’s court,” FCC Comrs. Copps and Adelstein said in a joint statement. “The Commission should seize the second chance to do the right thing.” They said the FCC’s new media policy should include: (1) A comprehensive proceeding to promote localism, competition and diversity. (2) A series of hearings across the country on the impact of media concentration. (3) Creating a “far more complete record,” including independent research on media concentration. “At least for today, the power of the American people triumphed over narrow corporate interests,” Adelstein said: “We need to go back to the drawing board and get it right.”
The reasoning behind the decision not to appeal the lower court decision wasn’t being publicly discussed by either the FCC or the SG’s office. An FCC official said the decision was ultimately up to the Acting SG, though the FCC did have input. The content of that input wasn’t disclosed. The SG’s office had sought several extensions of the deadline for joining the appeal (CD Dec 22 p8). The latest deadline was Jan. 31.
Media groups, including the NAB, filed the initial appeal of the U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, decision overturning the latest FCC media ownership rules (CD June 25 p1) in Prometheus Radio Project vs. the FCC. The rules would have allowed a single company to own up to 3 TV stations, 8 radio stations and one newspaper per market. In a 218-page decision, the court remanded the June 2003 FCC decision, saying the Commission should fix flaws in its diversity index, which was used to set the cross- ownership rules.
Tribune Co., for example, had said the Supreme Court should take the opportunity to review the entire spectrum scarcity argument, which is the basis for much FCC media regulation (CD Aug 23 p9). It also said the First Amendment prohibits limits on broadcasters’ speech.
The decision “is a huge win for the public,” Common Cause said in a statement: “The FCC now has a chance to do what it failed to do before: Involve the public in a meaningful way as it reconsiders these ownership rules.” Media Access Project Pres. Andrew Schwartzman called the SG decision “one more indication that the broad and bipartisan public opposition to media concentration has become too powerful to be ignored.” Broadcasters had actively lobbied the Administration to participate in the appeal, Schwartzman said, “but now, after more than 2 million American citizens made their views known, the Administration was able to stand up to big media.”
The SG decision “is not a cause for celebration. It is a call to arms,” said Josh Silver, exec. dir. of Free Press: “The FCC is still dominated by industry pawns. We cannot expect this FCC to act in the public interest without listening to the public… We fully expect industry lobbyists and their allies at the FCC to attempt to sneak the same policies in through the back door.”
“We're disappointed… the solicitor general will not be seeking Supreme Court review of media ownership rules,” the NAB said: “We continue to believe the Supreme Court needs to clarify lower court decisions related to media ownership, and NAB will be seeking that review on Monday, Jan. 31.”