Courts punt again on joint sales agreement hearing

Dec 01, 2015 12:02 am
A long time ago, now more than a decade, the Prometheus Radio Project, a pirate radio-turned-lobbyist and advocacy group promoting public access to the airwaves, challenged the Federal Communication Commission’s media ownership rules, especially about television station Joint Sales Agreements. The case has been shuffled from one jurisdiction to another over the years, but on Dec. 3 oral arguments were scheduled in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Now Prometheus attorney Andrew Schwartzman tells Radio World that the Third Circuit, actually, will hear the case. After all the years of trading places in court, Prometheus wants the FCC to comply with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ order to justify or modify the government's method of increasing minority ownership, or propose new measures to do so. Instead, the FCC has deferred a decision on the minority issues.