FCC v Prometheus Radio Project was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with media ownership rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can set under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The case dates back to Third Circuit rulings from 2002 that have blocked FCC decisions to relax media ownership rules related to cross-ownership of newspapers with television and radio broadcast stations. In the present case, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in April 2021 that the FCC had not made arbitrary and capricious rulemaking decisions in the context of the Administrative Procedure Act, nor had the requirement to review minority ownership of stations under Congressional mandate as stated in the Third Circuit's ruling, reversing this last ruling and allowing the FCC to proceed to relax cross-media ownership rules.
Background.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had been given authority under the Communications Act of 1934 to set media ownership rules of broadcast services such as radio and television that served the same community as to manage the broadcasting spectrum. In 1975, the FCC enacted a rule restricting cross-media ownership, preventing newspapers from also owning broadcast services, as to reduce concentration of media ownership that had been occurring in the years prior. While the FCC could not regulate newspapers, they could extend their regulation on broadcast services to cover cross-ownership.
The 1975 rule led to a number of debates on the cross-media ownership rules, as they were found to become barriers to entry into the market. Among other functions, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 instructed the FCC to perform a review of its rules related to media ownership every four years and repeal rules that no longer made sense in the current market as to foster competition within the communications industry.
