The Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals from the FCC and NAB to overturn the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the FCC’s 2017 changes to the broadcast ownership rules.
The appeals court ruling prevented the FCC from implementing rule changes that would have eliminated the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule preventing a company from operating a newspaper and a broadcast outlet in the same market, eliminating the ownership subcaps so a television station no longer counts towards the limit of eight radio stations (maximum of five on each band) that a company can own, the requirement that at least eight independently owned television stations must remain in the market following the combination of two television stations in a market, the ban against common ownership of two top-four rated tv stations in a market to allow waivers on a case-by-case basis, and liminating the JSA Attribution Rule requiring television stations to count a station it sells more than 15% of ad time for under the ownership cap.