C-SPAN will air/stream the Supreme Court oral argument Tuesday (Jan. 19) in FCC v. Prometheus.
That is the FCC's defense of its 2017 broadcast ownership dereg decision.
The argument is scheduled for 10 a.m.
Also Read: FCC Deregulates Broadcast Ownership
In November 2017, a politically divided FCC voted to eliminate the newspaper-broadcast and the radio-TV cross-ownership rules; allow dual station ownership in markets with fewer than eight independent voices after the duopoly, creating an opportunity for ownership of two of the top four stations in a market on a case-by-case basis (the FCC did not call it a waiver); eliminate attribution of joint sales agreements as ownership; and create an incubator program.
Also Read: Supremes to Hear Broadcast Dereg Case
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals said the FCC had not sufficiently gauged the impact of those deregulatory changes on minority and female ownership, as the court had told the FCC it must do the last time the circuit weighed in on the FCC's long-standing attempts to loosen regs on broadcasters, and blocked all that deregulation.
Had oral argument been scheduled for after the inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden, it is unlikely the government would have pressed its appeal.
