Bloomberg: FCC, Broadcasters Get Top Court Hearing on Ownership Rules

10.2.2020 / By Greg Stohr and Todd Shields
Bloomberg: FCC, Broadcasters Get Top Court Hearing on Ownership Rules

Advocacy organizations led by Prometheus Radio Project are fighting the FCC changes. They called the 3rd Circuit ruling an “unremarkable” decision that merely required the commission to explain how the changes would affect its longstanding goal of increasing ownership diversity. The FCC may not “expressly embrace ownership diversity as an important policy goal yet fail to reasonably consider how its repeal of major broadcast-ownership restrictions would affect that goal,” argued the group, which includes Common Cause and the National Organization for Women.

The Supreme Court will consider letting the Federal Communications Commission ease limits on the ownership of local media outlets, agreeing to hear appeals from the broadcast industry and President Donald Trump’s administration in a fight that dates back almost two decades.

The justices will review a federal appeals court decision that blocked the changes and told the FCC to study the impact they would have on female and minority ownership in the media industry. Relaxing the rules could mean a wave of consolidation affecting TV stations nationwide. …

Advocacy organizations led by Prometheus Radio Project are fighting the FCC changes. They called the 3rd Circuit ruling an “unremarkable” decision that merely required the commission to explain how the changes would affect its longstanding goal of increasing ownership diversity.

The FCC may not “expressly embrace ownership diversity as an important policy goal yet fail to reasonably consider how its repeal of major broadcast-ownership restrictions would affect that goal,” argued the group, which includes Common Cause and the National Organization for Women.

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