The cable groups’ filing says the FCC’s repeal of the TV ownership cap violates the 2004 action by U.S. lawmakers. Congress’s decision to set the cap at a specific numerical threshold was unambiguous, the filing said.
“Congress established the national cap at 39 percent in the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2004. in direct response to the FCC’s attempt to aggressively raise the cap to 45% and made repeated references to the 39 percent cap in the law,” the petition states.
The request to the FCC is primarily a procedural step since the commission is unlikely to suspend its own order. The cable groups said they intend to sue the commission in a U.S. appeals court once the FCC order is published in the Federal Register. Once the lawsuit is filed, they can ask the court to issue a preliminary injunction that would keep the TV ownership cap in place pending the outcome of the litigation.
The filing was submitted by cable industry groups that represent providers in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and the six New England states. The state and regional groups represent large and small cable companies, including the nation’s largest cable operators, Comcast, Charter and Cox.
FCC says it may change or eliminate rule
The FCC order issued last week says that although Congress chose the 39 percent limit, the law set the limit by “directing the Commission to modify its rules rather than by promulgating a fixed cap in law.” The FCC says it “has the authority and obligation to review the national cap rule in response to changing circumstances and to modify or repeal it if it no longer serves the public interest.”
While the 2004 law states that the FCC cannot repeal or modify the cap during its quadrennial reviews of media rules, the FCC says it can eliminate the cap if it does so outside of the quadrennial review process. The law “simply separates the Commission’s decisions to review the national cap from the statutorily mandated review of other media ownership rules that must occur every four years,” the FCC said.
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