Broadcasting & Cable: Prometheus Et al. Fire Back at FCC Over Ownership Dereg

Broadcasting & Cable: Prometheus Et al. Fire Back at FCC Over Ownership Dereg

“The Third Circuit has told the FCC on multiple occasions to examine how its media ownership rules impact race and gender ownership diversity," said Michael Copps, former FCC chairman and special advisor to Common Cause (one of the petitioners). "The FCC has not only failed to assess the impact of its rules on minority ownership but has also abandoned its rules all together. We urge the Court to reverse this unlawful decision and require the FCC to fulfill its statutory mandate to promote race and gender diversity in media ownership.” 

Groups that filed a legal challenge to the FCC’s media ownership deregulation under FCC chairman Ajit Pai have told the court that the FCC ignored its obligation to the public interest, and an order from a federal appeals court, to study the impact  of its moves on diversity.

That came in a reply brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The groups said the FCC ignored the impact of the broadcast incentive auction–where owners gave up their licenses for pay–on the amount of broadcast diversity. The Third Circuit had instructed the FCC to consider the impact of the broadcast incentive auction on diversity, it did not. The FCC has said that was also reasonable because not all the facts were in. While the auction was over by the time it made its 2017 decision to deregulate, the repack was not.

“The Third Circuit has told the FCC on multiple occasions to examine how its media ownership rules impact race and gender ownership diversity,” said Michael Copps, former FCC chairman and special advisor to Common Cause (one of the petitioners). “The FCC has not only failed to assess the impact of its rules on minority ownership but has also abandoned its rules all together. We urge the Court to reverse this unlawful decision and require the FCC to fulfill its statutory mandate to promote race and gender diversity in media ownership.”