Here We Go (Again): FCC Media Ownership Policy, Prometheus Radio Project and (now) the Supreme Court

On April 17, the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters each filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s 2019 decision in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC. The decision was the fourth in a line of intertwined cases dealing with the agency’s media ownership policies since 2004. In Prometheus IV, the Third Circuit remanded the diametrically opposed FCC’s media ownership decisions in 2016 and 2017, as well as the agency’s 2018 incubator program. Although the Third Circuit decisions in this line of cases have each discussed some evidentiary and procedural shortcomings within the FCC’s statutorily mandated quadrennial reviews, one of the key issues since the first decision in June 2004 has been the FCC’s failure to develop, implement and (empirically) support a policy to promote the ownership of broadcast stations by women and minorities.

[Christopher Terry is a publicly engaged scholar who is currently an assistant professor of media law and ethics in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Caitlin Ring Carlson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Seattle University.]