Public Interest Groups Seek Stay of UHF Discount Restoration

Project and the United Church of Christ Office of Communication said they and viewers they represent “will incur immediate and irreparable harm” if the order restoring the discount isn’t stayed, because the FCC will be able to approve deals once the rule is effective “and divestiture thereafter is effectively impossible.” The FCC’s vote to restore the discount “has already opened the floodgates for further broadcast consolidation, starting with Sinclair’s recently announced bid to buy Tribune Media’s stations in most of the nation’s largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas,” said Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood in a news release. The groups say their legal challenge of the restored discount is likely to prevail, since the FCC has conceded that the technical underpinnings of the discount -- the onetime inferiority of the UHF band -- no longer apply. “It is arbitrary and capricious to adopt a provision that lacks any independent technical or policy support,” said the petition. The groups also criticized the FCC’s explanation that the discount was restored pending a future review of the national ownership cap. Both Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said they don’t believe the FCC has the authority to alter the national cap. “It is arbitrary and capricious to assume what the future membership of the FCC may do in an as-yet to be initiated hypothetical proceeding based on a record that does not yet exist and may not support the legal and factual conclusions necessary to do what the current majority of the Commission would like to do," the petition said. The petition seeks final action by May 23.