The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled to overturn the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the FCC’s 2017 changes to the broadcast ownership rules.
As the proposed rules were proposed to be adopted by former FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai and opposed by current acting Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, the ruling does not mean the new rules will go into effect.
The appeals court ruling had 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.
The court’s ruling states, “In assessing the effects of the rule changes on minority and female ownership, the FCC did not have perfect empirical or statistical data. But that is not unusual in day-to-day agency decisionmaking within the Executive Branch. The APA imposes no general obligation on agencies to conduct or commission their own empirical or statistical studies. And nothing in the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to conduct such studies before exercising its discretion under Section 202(h). In light of the sparse record on minority and female ownership and the FCC’s findings with respect to competition, localism, and view- point diversity, the Court cannot say that the agency’s decision to re- peal or modify the ownership rules fell outside the zone of reasonable- ness for purposes of the APA.
