FCC Still Sorting Out Ownership; New Radio Forms Out ‘Soon’

The commission is still trying to sort out differing court decisions about its new media ownership rules and has made no decision yet on whether to pursue further litigation. That’s according to Chairman Michael Powell, who met with reporters Wednesday.
A federal appeals court made some decisions in the FCC’s favor last week but Powell said some inconsistencies remain between that decision and an earlier one by the DC Circuit. The commission could choose to take the last decision to the Supreme Court.
The big decision radio would care about made by the Appeals Court last week is to let the commission go ahead and apply its new radio market definition to station deals. The FCC wanted to use Arbitron Radio Metros, believing those more realistically reflect actual signals in a market for the purpose of “counting” to determine whether a group stays within its local station limits if a transaction is approved.
The commission last week froze filing of CP and station sale applications until it issues new forms. Media Bureau Chief Ken Ferree told RW Online those would be out soon. The commission is still working on a market definition for markets Arbitron doesn’t measure.