Media Center

“It was a long and winding road for Jessica Rosenworcel, but she stayed the course and good sense has now finally prevailed with today’s Senate vote. Jessica faces a daunting agenda as chair but she has the experience and dedication to make historic progress leading the FCC. Past commission mistakes must be corrected and new trails blazed to provide our country with the communications ecosystem our democracy so clearly must have. Needed now is a fifth commissioner, so that a full FCC can get on with its important mandate of protecting the public interest.” - Michael Copps, Former FCC Commissioner and Common Cause Special Adviser

Today, AT&T and Discovery Inc. announced a $43 billion deal to merge WarnerMedia with Discovery. Under the deal, AT&T will spin off its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner to form a new company with Discovery. The new company will combine the media assets of WarnerMedia with Discovery. The announcement of the deal comes just three years after AT&T acquired Time Warner, which Common Cause opposed.

Today, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project upholding the FCC’s 2017 Order to roll back several of its media ownership rules. The rules prohibit a single entity from owning too many newspaper, radio, and television stations within a local market. In upholding the FCC’s deregulation of media ownership rules, the Supreme Court found that the agency acted reasonably for the purposes of the Administrative Procedure Act, which guides agency decision making.

“President Biden has appointed Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as Interim Chair of the Federal Communications Commission.  She is ideal for the job.  I know, because we worked together when she led my staff while I was a commissioner there.  She knows the FCC from the bottom up and she understands how to make good things happen there.  She was called from my staff to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, where she was responsible for telecom and media policy.  Then she was appointed a commissioner at the FCC and has demonstrated a mastery of the issues that has been seldom matched.  Whether it’s bringing broadband to every home in America, encouraging internet availability for our schools, making wise decisions for the utilization of spectrum, contesting telecom and media monopolies, battling mis- and dis- information, she has a combination of vision and practicality that make her perfect for the chairmanship.  She is a true advocate of the public interest.  Congratulations, Jessica.”

Today, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Prometheus v. Federal Communications Commission. The case addresses the question of whether the FCC properly concluded that deregulating media ownership rules would not harm its longstanding public interest goal of promoting media ownership by women and people of color. The FCC media ownership rules prohibit a single entity from owning too many newspaper, radio, and television entities within a local market.

Today, Common Cause joined Prometheus Radio Project, Movement Alliance Project, Free Press, Office of Communication, Inc. of the United Church of Christ, and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians-Communications Workers of America in filing a brief urging the Supreme Court to affirm the Third Circuit’s decision that the Federal Communications Commission was arbitrary and capricious in deregulating media ownership rules without considering what effect it would have on broadcast ownership by women and people of color. The FCC media ownership rules prohibit a single entity from owning too many newspaper, radio, and television entities within a local market.