NCTA Moves to Intervene to Defend FCC’s Quadrennial Review Order

NCTA is seeking to intervene in support of the FCC and against four petitions for review consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act, said NCTA's unopposed motion Monday.

The ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates associations sought leave Friday to intervene on behalf of the petitioners (see 2403220041). 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).

Of "particular importance to NCTA," said its motion to intervene, the FCC order retained the commission's local television ownership rule, which generally limits the number of full-power television stations an entity may own within the same local market. The order also retained the top-four prohibition, generally prohibiting a broadcaster from acquiring two stations ranked in the top four in audience share in a market.

The FCC found that the local television ownership rule promotes competition among local broadcast television stations, said NCTA's motion. The rule, in turn, prevents local broadcasters from demanding higher retransmission consent fees from cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors, it said.

The commission also modified existing rules to prevent circumvention of the top-four prohibition and ensure the continued "efficacy" of the local television ownership rule by extending the ban on acquiring a second affiliation in a market if that would result in the same entity controlling two of the top-four feeds, said the motion. As NCTA argued in the proceeding leading to the QR order, in a significant number of markets the FCC’s top-four prohibition was circumvented when broadcasters placed major network affiliations on low-power television stations and multicast streams, it said.

Allowing a single owner to control two major television networks in the same region “confers the same undue market power -- and therefore the same leverage in retransmission consent negotiations -- regardless of whether the combination arises from the ownership of two full power stations, the ownership of an LPTV station, or the use of a multicast stream,” said the motion.

The commission’s QR order “modified its existing rules to close this loophole,” the motion said. If the 8th Circuit were to overturn the order and reopen this loophole, or otherwise call into question the viability of the local television ownership rule or the top-four prohibition, “the increased leverage that broadcasters would enjoy in retransmission consent negotiations would directly and adversely affect NCTA’s members,” it said. NCTA is “entitled to intervene as a matter of right,” it said.