Here are some of the regulatory developments and legal actions of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

• The U.S. Supreme Court decided to consider the appeals by the FCC and industry groups of the Third Circuit’s decision overturning the FCC’s 2017 ownership order. The FCC’s 2017 decision, among other things, abolished the newspaper-broadcast and radio-TV cross-ownership bans and allowed common ownership of two TV stations in the same market even when there were not 8 independent operators and, in some cases, even allowed combinations of two of the top 4 rated TV stations in a market.  For years, the Third Circuit has blocked the FCC’s attempts to reform its ownership rules.  In the cases which the Supreme Court will now review, the Prometheus Radio Project cases, the Third Circuit said that the Commission’s analysis of the media marketplace lacked evidence of the impact that changes in the rules have had and will have on the diversity of new entrants into media ownership.  Briefs are likely to be submitted to the Supreme Court this fall with oral arguments to follow early in the new year.  A decision is expected before the end of this term of the Supreme Court at the end of June or beginning of July of 2021.  Get caught up with the issue in these cases, here.  (Supreme Court Order List)
• The FCC relaxed its rules regarding the notifications cable companies must provide to their subscribers about retransmission consent blackouts. The change from 30-day advance notice of a blackout to “as soon as possible” notification is an acknowledgement that retransmission negotiations sometimes continue until the hours before the deadline and that 30-day notice is, in many cases, not a reliable indicator that a blackout will occur.  (Report and Order)
• The FCC released an order that will bring more structure to the Team Telecom process which reviews proposals for foreign ownership in the telecommunications industry. Any broadcast deal that would lead to more than 25% foreign ownership is subject to Team Telecom review. Team Telecom brings together telecommunications and national security officials from throughout the government to examine these transactions.  The changes are designed to give applicants more transparency into the process and make reviews more predictable.  The FCC also hopes to reduce the amount of time it takes for an application to make it through the review process.  (News Release)  (Report and Order)
• FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly published a blog post detailing what he thinks should be included in the next slate of media modernization items the Commission considers. O’Rielly suggests lifting the freeze on technical upgrades and modifications that was put in place to conserve staff resources devoted to the incentive auction and repack, updating the criteria by which stations are considered to be failing for ownership waiver purposes, allowing waivers for LPFM stations to make in-market moves, updating the rules for VHF channels to move to the UHF band, and updating the rules to make easier certain changes to communities of license of TV stations.  As Commissioner O’Rielly is expected to leave the Commission at year’s end (or sooner if his replacement is confirmed), his time to work on these issues from within the Commission is limited, so his blog post can be seen as a roadmap of media modernization items for the next group of Commissioners to consider.  (Blog Post)
• We published in our Blog our monthly look at the regulatory dates and deadlines for October. Next up is October 10, which is important for all licensees of full-power stations as it is the deadline for stations to post to their online public files their Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists detailing the issues facing their communities and the programming that they broadcast to address those issues during July, August, and September.  (Broadcast Law Blog)