A group of state and regional cable industry organizations representing the nation's pay-TV operators is asking the FCC to delay its decision last August to eliminate the 39% national TV station ownership cap, pending judicial review.
The organizations told the FCC that they would petition a court of appeals to review the commission’s decision when the order was posted. The group pulled the trigger this week after the order was published on Oct. 2. The order is set to take effect 60 afterwards.
In August, the FCC voted to modify the rule that allows TV station groups to own no more than 39% of the TV stations in designated markets. The commission, which had been under pressure from station groups and lobbying groups like the NAB, justified its decision in the name of local journalism.
“I don't want local broadcast TV to go the way of local newspapers, and yet the risk is real,” Carr said at the time, adding that over the last two decades “more than 80% of local journalism jobs have vanished.”
Cable companies, particularly smaller operators, have long opposed the move, telling FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez last summer that such a move would increase “retransmission consent fees” and cause “higher consumer bills.”
Those arguments were repeated in the petitioner’s case to the FCC.
“Despite the record clearly showing that retransmission consent fees and consumers’ monthly TV bills will increase substantially as a result of increased broadcaster consolidation following the Order, the Commission dismissed these affordability concerns,” the group told the FCC. “Instead, the Commission determined that retransmission consent concerns are better handled in transaction reviews, inexplicably reversing course after months of Media Bureau-level orders indicating that such concerns were to be addressed in industry-wide rulemakings.”
They also said that there was no proof that dropping the rule would benefit consumers
"While the Commission justified its decision to eliminate the Cap based on alleged benefits to network-affiliate relationships, it cited no evidence to support its claim that improving these relationships would mitigate the downstream harms to consumers,” they said. “The Commission also failed to adequately address other substantial and material facts in the record, including the likelihood of public interest harms to localism and viewpoint diversity.
"As Commissioner Gomez summarized in her dissent: 'I cannot support an action that so plainly exceeds the Commission’s authority while simultaneously overlooking the real-world consequences for the public we serve,'" the petition stated.
The group said it will take further action if the FCC does not pause the rule.
“If the Commission has not ruled on this stay petition by the date on which the Order is published in the Federal Register, Petitioners will conclude that the agency has “denied the motion or failed to afford the relief requested” and seek a judicial stay.”
The group includes:
- Broadband Communications Association Of Pennsylvania
- Broadband Communications Association Of Washington
- Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association
- Florida Internet And Television Association
- Indiana Cable And Broadband Association
- Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association
- Minnesota Cable Communications Association
- Mississippi Internet & Television
- New England Connectivity And Telecommunications Association, and
- Vcta – Broadband Association Of Virginia
