The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has once again questioned the FCC's determinations on broadcast ownership issues. In a decision just published, Prometheus Radio Project v FCC, the Court reviewed the FCC's 2007 actions relaxing the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules and adopting policies to increase diversity in broadcast ownership. These FCC decisions had followed a prior decision of the Third Circuit determining that the FCC's 2003 Ownership Order, relaxing many FCC ownership rules, was not adequately justified. The FCC's subsequent actions on cross ownership were set out in its 2007 order, relaxed the newspaper broadcast cross ownership rules in larger markets through a policy based on certain presumptions that, when met, justified the common ownership of newspapers and radio and television stations in larger markets (and, in some cases, in smaller markets too)( see our summary of this order here and here). The diversity order, released in 2008 (summarized here and here), adopted a number of rules and policies meant to encourage diversity in media ownership. In this new decision, the Court found that both the decision as to the newspaper cross ownership rules and the one dealing with diversity policies were wanting, and sent these matters back to the FCC for further consideration. At the same time, the Court upheld the FCC's decisions not to change the local television ownership rules (allowing common ownership of 2 TV stations only when there are at least 8 independently owned stations in a market, and where the combined stations are not both among the Top 4 in their markets) and to retain the sub-caps for radio ownership (the rules that allow one entity to own up to 8 stations in a single market, as long as there are no more than 5 in any single service, i.e. AM or FM).
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