The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision this week on the appeals of the FCC’s December 2023 decision following its 2018 Quadrennial Review (see our summary here) to leave the local radio and television ownership rules largely unchanged.  The Court’s decision was a victory for television owners, declaring the restrictions on the ownership of two of the Top 4 TV stations in any market to be contrary to the record and ending that restriction unless, within 90 days, the FCC can show that there was in fact record evidence supporting the restriction.  The Court also provided a more sweeping victory to the industry, concluding that the Quadrennial Review proceeding was inherently a deregulatory one.  In the Quadrennial Review process, the FCC can retain the rules that it has or relax them based on the effects of competition.  It cannot tighten them, leading the Court to throw out the one new aspect of the 2023 decision – expanding the prohibition on a company acquiring a second TV network affiliation and moving it to a digital subchannel or an LPTV station (when the rule had previously applied only to moving that affiliation to a full-power station.)

While this decision gives the TV industry much to celebrate, the decision was not a total victory for the broadcast industry.  The radio rules remain unchanged, as do the TV limits that do not allow an interest in more than 2 TV stations in any market.  The Court had been urged to find that these rules were no longer supportable in light of competition from digital media.  The Court looked at the statutory requirement that the Commission review these rules every 4 years in light of competition, and decided to defer to the FCC’s policy judgment that the proper scope of competition to be analyzed at this time was the competition within the broadcast industry itself.  The Court deferred to the FCC’s findings that broadcasting’s unique local nature and its broad-based advertising reach (as opposed to the individually-targeted ads of digital competitors) made it different from digital media.  Therefore, the Court upheld the FCC’s findings that broadcasting was still a unique marketplace where the public interest required limits on how many stations one party can own in a market.  Certainly, most broadcasters, particularly in radio, would be surprised to know that they do not compete with digital – but that was the effect of the Court’s decision.Continue Reading Court of Appeals Throws Out TV Top 4 Ownership Prohibition – What is Next for Radio and Other Local TV Ownership Rules?