Court Won't Force FCC Action on LPTV Decision

A federal court has denied a request by low-power TV (LPTV) station owners to force the Federal Communications Commission to rule on their request to participate in the incentive auction. That came after the FCC signaled a decision would be forthcoming and there were still legal avenues for those LPTVs before the auction launches. The LPTV owners—The Videohouse, Fifth Street Enterprises, LLC, and WMTM, LLC—wanted the FCC to reconsider its decision not to protect their signals in the post incentive auction repack or participate in the auction because they did not file their applications for Class A status until after a February 2012 deadline for doing so. But the court did say it expects the FCC to act on the request in time for the parties to seek judicial review of that decision before the March 29 launch of the incentive auction. Only Class A low powers can be protected in the repack.

The owners had asked the court to direct the FCC to decide by Jan 4, given that the deadline for applying to put spectrum in the auction is Jan. 12, but the court said that the FCC's delay in deciding on the petition—which was filed in September—was not "so unreasonable" as to justify the "extraordinary" remedy of mandamus, essentially a judicial command. The three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said that based on the FCC's response to the petition for that writ of mandamus, it expected it to rule promptly to allow that review before March 29.