Behind the NAB Supreme challenge
The National Association of Broadcasters is not challenging the Third Circuit remand of the FCC's 6/2/03 ownership rulemaking per se - - rather, it is going after two of the planks in the original rulemaking itself. NAB is saying that the Commission overstepped its bounds when it adopted Arbitron-based radio market definitions, and when it prohibited TV duopolies among any of the top four rated stations in a DMA.
In both cases, NAB says the FCC acted in defiance of Congressional intent as expressed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. On the radio side, NAB accused the FCC of "....administratively repealing Congress's decision to dramatically deregulate media ownership rules and expand permissible common ownership."
On the TV side, NAB said that the FCC "retained severe restrictions on local television ownership in the face of overwhelming evidence, acknowledged by the Commission, that common ownership in small and mid-sized local television markets will improve competition and advance the public interest."
NAB noted that the shift in radio market definitions would effectively constrict most markets, thereby cutting cluster ceilings from those approved by Congress, and eroding the very mechanism which allowed the struggling industry to return to financial health. On the TV side, NAB noted increasing competition combined with the expense associated with the federally-mandated conversion to DTV, making profitability an elusive target.
"The Third Circuit's affirmation of the Commission's local radio and television ownership rules will therefore have profound implications for the nature and quality of news, local affairs, and other programming offered to the listening and viewing public, as well as for the very survival of radio and television broadcasters across the country. The questions presented here are thus worth of review in this court."
TVBR observation:
Interesting that while NAB makes the re-regulation of radio a cornerstone of its claim that the FCC violated the 1996 Telecom Act, so far as we know not a single radio group has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court. Perhaps Clear Channel and Cumulus really are content to go forward with the entrenched advantage they have in so many markets.
Are you reading this from a forwarded email?
