As Anna Gomez fills the fifth Commissioner seat, the now-full-strength FCC has been assigned its largest task involving radio. The DC Circuit of the US Court of Appeals has ordered the Commission to finalize its delayed 2018 quadrennial review within the next 90 days.
The court’s ruling comes at a time when the FCC has a Democratic 3-2 majority, after three years of waiting for the agency to decide its course of action.
The directive comes as the FCC has also initiated its 2022 review, mandated by law. If the agency fails to complete the 2018 review within the given time, it must provide a valid reason for the delay or face the possibility of a National Association of Broadcasters petition for mandamus being granted. The petition is essentially a demand to expedite the delayed process.
NAB President/CEO Curtis LeGeyt said, “NAB applauds the Court for recognizing the vital importance of the FCC completing its long overdue 2018 quadrennial review. Today, broadcasters’ service to communities across the country is imperiled by the Commission’s failure to modernize its decades-old media ownership rules.”
“The ruling is an important step to compel a review that the record makes clear is necessary to allow local broadcasters to more fairly compete and deliver our trusted, locally-focused programming in a transformed media marketplace,” LeGeyt continued. “NAB looks forward to actively engaging with the FCC to forge a path forward and reinforce the essential service provided by free, local broadcast stations in communities across the country.”
