RCC Pushes DC Circuit to Overturn FCC LPTV Order

in the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Monday. By allowing LPTV stations to upgrade to Class A status only in DMAs with 95,000 households or fewer, the FCC “excludes service to populated areas and promotes Class A service to deserts, rivers, lakes, mountains, prairie grasslands, literally authorizing Class A service to everywhere, except those places where people are located,” said RCC. The FCC has said that the use of Nielsen DMAs and the 95,000 household threshold were specifically required by the language of the LPPA, but RCC’s brief disagreed. “The LPPA does not authorize the Commission to sacrifice LPTV and Class A licenses for the benefit of NAB’s Clients,” RCC said. In the brief’s glossary, the term “NAB’s Clients” is defined as “full service TV clients” – full power stations. Rather than limiting Class A upgrades based on the size of a station’s DMA, the agency should have limited it based on the size of their community of license, RCC said. By using Nielsen’s markets, the FCC is unconstitutionally delegating authority to a private company, RCC said. The FCC’s order “transforms the ‘Low Power Protection Act’ into the ‘Large Power Protection Act’ by unreasonably limiting, at every critical determination, LPPA’s economic protection of LPTV stations,” RCC said. The DC Circuit rejected RCC's request for an emergency stay of the FCC's LPPA order in March.