U.S. court deals setback to FCC push to revamp media ownership rules
Source: Reuters
Business News
September 23, 2019 / 12:37 PM / Updated 9 minutes ago
David Shepardson 3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Communications Commission suffered a setback on Monday in a long-running legal battle when a federal appeals court struck down its latest effort to loosen U.S. media ownership rules.
The Republican-led FCC in 2017 voted 3-2 to eliminate the 42-year-old ban on cross-ownership of a newspaper and TV station in a major market. It also voted to make it easier for media companies to buy additional TV stations in the same market, and for local stations to jointly sell advertising time and for companies to buy additional radio stations in some markets.
The court told the FCC to take up the issue again, saying the regulator “did not adequately consider the effect its sweeping rule changes will have on ownership of broadcast media by women and racial minorities.”
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement that despite instructions from Congress to review media ownership regulations a majority of federal appeals court judges for 15 years “has taken that authority for themselves, blocking any attempt to modernize these regulations to match the obvious realities of the modern media marketplace.”
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-media/u-s-court-deals-setback-to-fcc-push-to-revamp-media-ownership-rules-idUSKBN1W81YU?il=0
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