That’s the next step after the Commission lost its bid to have the entire Third Circuit reconsider a three-judge panel’s decision to ditch the FCC’s latest attempt to modernize ownership rules.
A majority of the appeals court voted not to rehear the September decision overturning the FCC’s attempt to allow broadcast and newspaper ownership in a single market. The next move for the FCC would be to go to the Supreme Court. There has been no official word on whether they will do that as of yet.
Radio owners hoping for more deregulation (and there are many) are watching this one closely, hoping it can be resolved quickly. It’s likely nothing else will happen on deregulation until this issue is resolved. Many believed this modification would be the easiest rule to be changed. With newspapers failing all over the country it would seem pairing a paper up with a radio cluster or TV station could only help them. And as Randy Michael said Wednesday at Forecast, “What broadcaster would even want to own a newspaper?”
