Ion, Meredith, CBS Ask FCC to Deny PMCM Emergency Motion for Stay

posted Friday in docket 14-150. Though a footnote in the joint opposition says the emergency motion was delivered to the broadcasters Wednesday, the motion doesn’t appear to be in the FCC Electronic Comment Filing System. PMCM gave opponents a deadline of noon Friday to respond to the motion, the footnote said. “PMCM’s contention that a stay is mandated because the implementation of the Commission Decisions will result in irreparable harm to PMCM is sheer sophistry,” the bigger broadcasters said. It's “a rehash of the very same arguments that have been rejected repeatedly by the Commission and the court of appeals,” they said. “PMCM is wrong about Commission precedent, wrong about the PSIP [Program and System Information Protocol] Standard, wrong about the Commission’s authority to assign WJLP virtual channel 33, and wrong about the Spectrum Act.” The FCC decisions would cause PMCM irreparable harm and misinterpret the agency's own rules and Congressional intent, PMCM said in the emergency motion. PMCM will seek relief in court if the FCC doesn’t act, the motion said. PMCM has a “quite high” likelihood of a successful appeal, the motion said, because the FCC decision rests on “an obvious misreading of statutory language.” A repeated theme of PMCM’s dealings with the FCC on the issue has been the FCC’s “refusal to apply the plain meaning of statutory and regulatory language,” PMCM said.