Broadcasters and Prometheus Battle Over Ownership Comment Extension
Broadcasters and public interest groups are fighting over whether the upcoming transition at the FCC and the recent holiday season are good enough reasons to extend comment deadlines on petitions to reconsider broadcast ownership rules, in several filings posted in docket 14-50 Friday. “Even in the unprecedented circumstance that every FCC staff person who has previously worked on broadcast ownership reviews accepts an assignment to a different Bureau . . . there is absolutely no reason that FCC staff newly responsible for broadcast ownership would not benefit from a fully briefed docket,” said NAB in opposition to the one-month extension requested by Prometheus Radio Project and Media Mobilizing Project. Nexstar also filed against the public interest request. The opposition filings are “ungracious posturing,” said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who represents the public interest groups.
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Prometheus Radio Project asked the commission to move the comment date from Jan. 17 to Feb. 17 to account for the disruption of the holidays and the change in administrations. “As a practical matter, it will take some time -- certainly weeks -- before new lines of authority are clearly established and the staff receives new directions on this and all other pending proceedings,” Schwartzman wrote.
The battle over extending comment deadlines is unusual since such requests generally are unopposed out of professional courtesy, a broadcast lawyer told us. The situation is more unusual since NAB and the public interest groups are in some ways on the same side, all engaged in appealing FCC quadrennial review ownership rules. Prometheus Radio challenged the rules in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 1611040054), while NAB withdrew its own court challenge after President-elect Donald Trump's White House win (see 1612020048) in anticipation that a Republican-controlled FCC will reverse the prior ownership decision, said several broadcast attorneys. Giving the opportunity to reverse the ownership rules as soon as possible to the GOP-controlled FCC is one possible reason for Nexstar and NAB's opposition, one broadcast attorney suggested.
“Any further delay in Commission action to update its broadcast ownership rules is harmful to the public interest,” said NAB. Prometheus claims it needs more time to develop a complete record in the quadrennial proceeding are “laughable,” said Nexstar, because the record “has been years in the making.” The interim FCC chairman likely will be a current commissioner “well versed” in the FCC's “lines of authority,” Nexstar said.
Prometheus' plea for more time “seems to be motivated only by Movants’ interest in delaying FCC reconsideration of this matter in the hopes that courts will move quickly on Movants’ appeal of the FCC’s Order,” NAB said. “There's no sinister tactical thing here,” Schwartzman said. It's considered unlikely courts will allow the judicial challenge of ownership rules to proceed while an active reconsideration process is underway at the FCC, a broadcast attorney said. The parties in the court case are awaiting a ruling on Prometheus' unopposed motion to move the case from the D.C. Circuit to the 3rd Circuit (see 1611170055).