By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 4-17-20
As expected, broadcasters and newspaper publishers have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision vacating most of the FCC’s effort under chairman Ajit Pai to deregulate broadcast ownership, including by eliminating the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules.
Echoing the FCC’s petition for Supreme Court hearing also filed Friday (April 17), media petitioners said that outdated ownership rules remain in force because a divided panel of the court has prevented the FCC from implementing “necessary adjustments to its ownership rules” that the FCC concluded would serve the public interest.
“The Third Circuit’s decision was not based on the rules’ merits or on any defect in the competition analysis Congress directed the FCC to perform,” they told the Supremes; indeed, no party disputed any aspect of that analysis. Instead, the Third Circuit’s decision was based solely on the panel majority’s atextual policy concerns about ownership diversity.” » Read More