FCC Plan to Relax Media Ownership Limits Likely to Be Challenged

An ambitious Federal Communications Commission plan to kill a raft of limits on media companies’ reach is likely to wind up in court.

The agency intends to vote Nov. 16 to eliminate two cross-ownership bans that prohibit the same company from owning any combination of a TV station, radio station, or newspaper in a single market. The plan would also lift a ban on a company owning more than one TV broadcaster if there are fewer than eight independently owned stations in a given market, and would ease a prohibition on one company owning more than one top-four station in a single market. The FCC would, instead, review any local duopolies on a case-by-case basis.

Senior agency officials outlined the plan to make those and other changes Oct. 26, a day after Chairman Ajit Pai announced it in a House oversight hearing. The agency is likely to approve the plan, probably on a party-line vote. 

A court challenge is “inevitable in this case, and likely to go to the Third Circuit,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Schettenhelm said. The Philadelphia-based court has heard media ownership cases since Republican FCC Chairman Michael Powell in 2003 unsuccessfully sought to relax a number of ownership limits, including the same cross-ownership and duopoly restrictions Pai intends to ease.