U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., should reject network appeal of nationa...
U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., should reject network appeal of national ownership cap on procedural grounds, as well as because appeal itself isn’t justified, NAB and Network Affiliated Stations Alliance (NASA) said late Mon. in joint brief to court. Brief…
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repeated earlier claims that ownership cap was needed to preserve balance between networks and affiliates and to assure stations had freedom to meet local programming needs (CD April 3 p4). They also said appeals court shouldn’t even hear case because: (1) Networks were appealing only a report to Congress, in which FCC said no change was needed, and report didn’t change anything and wasn’t subject to judicial review. (2) Networks didn’t have standing to appeal FCC action. (3) Court, at most, could only direct FCC to open rulemaking to consider eliminating ownership cap. NAB and NASA said networks could accomplish same goal by filing petition for rulemaking at FCC. Petition also rejected claim that ownership cap limited networks’ First Amendment rights, saying it restricted only ownership, not speech.