ATVA Seeks to Intervene in FCC’s Defense of Quadrennial Review Order

Telecommunications Act, said the alliance’s unopposed motion Friday in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 8th Circuit, in an April 2 order, granted NCTA’s motion to intervene on the FCC’s behalf (see 2404020045). In the order under review, the FCC found that its existing media ownership rules, with some minor modifications, remain necessary in the public interest, said ATVA’s motion. Most important to the group, the FCC retained the local television ownership rule with modest adjustments to reflect changes that have occurred in the television marketplace, it said. That rule limits the number of full-power television stations an entity may own within the same local market to at most two, subject to some limits, it said. The “top-four prohibition” generally bars broadcasters from owning two stations ranked among the top four in a local market, it said. The order “rejected broadcaster efforts” to weaken the top-four prohibition for strong public interest reasons, and the commission also took action to prevent parties from exploiting unintended ambiguities or gaps in the top-four prohibition, it said. ATVA and its members will be “substantially affected” by the 8th Circuit’s review of the order, said the motion. FCC rules require ATVA members to engage in retransmission consent negotiations with television broadcasters throughout the country, and the association argued throughout the agency proceeding that the challenged rules will protect consumers from rising costs due to pass-through of retransmission consent fee increases that result when broadcasters are able to negotiate retransmission consent fees for two top-four stations jointly in a market, it said. ATVA “likewise explained to the FCC the need to close the loophole that was increasingly being exploited” by network affiliation arrangements and acquisitions to circumvent the top-four prohibition, it said. An 8th Circuit decision calling the FCC’s decisions into question in these areas “would increase broadcasters’ already-powerful ability to extract supracompetitive retransmission consent fees from ATVA members and, ultimately, from consumers,” said the motion. The consolidated petitions pending in the 8th Circuit are from Zimmer Radio (docket 24-1380), Beasley Media Group (docket 24-1480), NAB (docket 24-1493) and Nexstar Media Group (docket 24-1516). The 8th Circuit previously granted the unopposed motions of four network affiliates associations (see 2403220041) and six radio group owners (see 2403260001) to intervene in support of the four consolidated petitions.