By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 11-25-20
Turns out Jan. 19 will be an inauguration day of sorts – inaugurating the Supreme Court’s first consideration of an appeal of the FCC’s media ownership rule deregulation.
It will be the fourth oral argument of the January session, with one hour of argument scheduled, though that could spill over depending on how the arguments and Justices’ questioning goes.
The FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters both challenged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
In September 2019, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit threw out, or at least threw back to the FCC, Chairman Ajit Pai’s effort to deregulate broadcast ownership and address a lack of diversity. The court said the agency “did not adequately consider the effect its sweeping rule changes will have on ownership of broadcast media by women and racial minorities,” something the court had said in a previous media ownership ruling that the FCC had to do next time around. » Read More