WASHINGTON—In its strongest comments to date on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to launch an early renewal process for stations owned by Disney’s ABC, the National Association of Broadcasters has filed comments rebutting the agency's actions and the arguments made by a variety of conservative groups who want the licenses yanked because of "biased" news coverage.
The filing stressed that denying the ABC-owned stations their licenses would violate First Amendment rights, potentially censor news coverage and threaten the financial future of the broadcast industry.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has repeatedly said that the FCC would like to strengthen the financial stability of local broadcasters so they can expand their local news coverage. He has also regularly cited that goal in announcing FCC initiatives relating to broadcast sports rights, the power of broadcast networks over affiliates and the need to end ownership caps on station groups.
“Contrary to many renewal opponents’ claims, [the station renewal process]...is not designed to be an open-ended vehicle for reviewing every aspect of a licensee’s or its corporate affiliates’ businesses, resolving claims committed to other agencies and courts, or second-guessing constitutionally protected editorial decisions,” the NAB complained. “The filings opposing renewal of the ABC stations’ licenses stray well beyond these statutory boundaries. They invite the Commission to evaluate whether and how the stations covered news and public affairs, which is precisely the type of editorial judgment protected by the First Amendment and Section 326’s prohibition against censorship. Yet none of the filers makes the prima facie showing required to establish that any programming aired by the stations violated the Communications Act, the FCC’s rules, or the stations’ public interest obligations.”
“The Commission expressly limits its consideration of non-FCC misconduct to four specific areas of adjudicated conduct, none of which are implicated by the renewal opponents,” the NAB added. “Additionally, Section 309(k)(1) directs the Commission to evaluate the performance of each station during its license term – not unrelated activities involving a station owner’s theme parks, film and television studios, streaming platforms, or other non-station operations. Allowing such allegations to influence the renewal determination would disregard the statutory text and established Commission precedent and would transform a focused review of station performance into a wide-ranging investigation of an entire corporate enterprise, outside the FCC’s jurisdiction. This is exactly what the Commission wanted to avoid when denying challenges to FOX 29 Philadelphia, WTXF-TV’s renewal application just two years ago.”
“Importantly, the uncertainty engendered by use of early license renewals will inevitably discourage investment in the broadcast industry,” the filing also stressed.
“Broadcasters already struggle to obtain needed investment capital for a variety of reasons, including their lack of tangible, physical collateral, given that their primary assets are government licenses that must be periodically renewed. Even a limited number of early license call-ins will appear to investors and lenders as undermining the stability of those broadcast industry assets necessary for all stations to remain functioning businesses…No license had been called for early renewal since 1972, demonstrating that this procedure is unnecessary to ensure effective enforcement of and broadcaster compliance with FCC rules. For these reasons, the FCC should reconsider its use of the rule in this instance and consider eliminating the rule altogether.”
“In short, NAB urges the Commission to apply existing FCC precedent and the governing constitutional and statutory limits and to focus the proceeding on the question Congress made dispositive: whether each station served the viewing public in its community over the term of its license,” the NAB concluded.
The full filing is available here.
