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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 315', '§ 303', '§ 303', '§ 307', '§ 1', '§ 315', '§ 315', '§ 315', '§ 315', '§ 315', '§ 326', '§ 315', '§ 18', '§ 301', '§ 307', '§ 307']

US Supreme Court Decisions On-Line> Volume 395 > RED LION BROADCASTING CO., INC. V. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 (1969)
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(b) The FCC's statutory mandate to see that broadcasters operate in the public interest and Congress' reaffirmation, in the chanrobles.com-red
No. 2, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 129, 381 F.2d 908, affirmed; No. 717, 400 F.2d 1002, reversed and remanded. chanrobles.com-red
The Federal Communications Commission has for many years imposed on radio and television broadcasters the requirement that discussion of public issues be presented on broadcast stations, and that each side of those issues must be given fair coverage. This is known as the fairness doctrine, which originated very early in the history of broadcasting and has maintained its present outlines for some time. It is an obligation whose content has been defined in a long series of FCC rulings in particular cases, and which is distinct from the statutory chanrobles.com-red
requirement of § 315 of the Communications Act [Footnote 1] that equal time be allotted all qualified candidates for public office. Two aspects of the fairness doctrine, relating to personal attacks in the context of controversial public issues and to political editorializing, were codified more precisely in the form of FCC regulations in 1967. The two cases before us now, which were decided separately below, challenge the constitutional and statutory bases of the doctrine and component rules. Red Lion chanrobles.com-red
The Red Lion Broadcasting Company is licensed to operate a Pennsylvania radio station, WGCB. On November 27, 1964, WGCB carried a 15-minute broadcast by the Reverend Billy James Hargis as part of a "Christian Crusade" series. A book by Fred J. Cook entitled "Goldwater -- Extremist on the Right" was discussed by Hargis, who said that Cook had been fired by a newspaper for making false charges against city officials; that Cook had then worked for a Communist-affiliated publication; that he had defended Alger Hiss and attacked J. Edgar Hoover and the Central Intelligence Agency, and that he had now written a "book to smear and destroy Barry Goldwater." [Footnote 2] When Cook heard of the broadcast, he chanrobles.com-red
concluded that he had been personally attacked and demanded free reply time, which the station refused. After an exchange of letters among Cook, Red Lion, and the FCC, the FCC declared that the Hargis broadcast constituted a personal attack on Cook; that Red Lion had failed to meet its obligation under the fairness doctrine as expressed in Times-Mirror Broadcasting Co., 24 P & F Radio Reg. 404 (1962), to send a tape, transcript, or summary of the broadcast to Cook and offer him reply time, and that the station must provide reply time whether or not Cook would pay for it. On review in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, [Footnote 3] the chanrobles.com-red
Before 1927, the allocation of frequencies was left entirely to the private sector, and the result was chaos. [Footnote 4] chanrobles.com-red
It quickly became apparent that broadcast frequencies constituted a scarce resource whose use could be regulated and rationalized only by the Government. Without government control, the medium would be of little use because of the cacaphony of competing voices, none of which could be clearly and predictably heard. [Footnote 5] Consequently, the Federal Radio Commission was established chanrobles.com-red
There is a twofold duty laid down by the FCC's decisions and described by the 1949 Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees, 13 F.C.C. 1246 (1949). The broadcaster must give adequate coverage to public issues, United Broadcasting Co., 10 F.C.C. 515 (1945), and coverage must be fair in that it accurately reflects the opposing views. New Broadcasting Co., 6 P & F Radio Reg. 258 (1950). This must be done at the broadcaster's own expense if sponsorship is unavailable. Cullman Broadcasting Co., 25 P & F Radio Reg. 895 (1963). chanrobles.com-red
When a personal attack has been made on a figure involved in a public issue, both the doctrine of cases such as Red Lion and Times-Mirror Broadcasting Co., 24 P & F Radio Reg. 404 (1962), and also the 1967 regulations at issue in RTNDA, require that the individual attacked himself be offered an opportunity to respond. Likewise, where one candidate is endorsed in a political editorial, the other candidates must themselves be offered reply time to use personally or through a spokesman. These obligations differ from the general fairness requirement that issues be presented, and presented with coverage of competing views, in that the broadcaster does not have the option of presenting the attacked party's side himself or choosing a third party to represent that side. But insofar as there is an obligation of the broadcaster to see that both sides are presented, and insofar as that is an affirmative obligation, the personal attack doctrine and regulations do not differ from the preceding fairness doctrine. The simple fact that the attacked men or unendorsed candidates may respond themselves or through chanrobles.com-red
47 U.S.C. § 303 and § 303(r). [Footnote 7] The Commission is specifically directed to consider the demands of the public interest in the course of granting licenses, 47 U.S.C. §§ 307(a), 309(a); chanrobles.com-red
Act of September 14, 1959, § 1, 73 Stat. 557, amending 47 U.S.C. § 315(a) (emphasis added). This language makes it very plain that Congress, in 1959, announced that the phrase "public interest," which had been in the Act since 1927, imposed a duty on broadcasters to discuss both sides of controversial public issues. In other words, the amendment vindicated the FCC's general view that the fairness doctrine inhered in the public interest standard. Subsequent legislation declaring the intent of an earlier statute chanrobles.com-red
is entitled to great weight in statutory construction. [Footnote 8] And here this principle is given special force by the equally venerable principle that the construction of a statute by those charged with its execution should be followed unless there are compelling indications that it is wrong, [Footnote 9] especially when Congress has refused to alter the administrative construction. [Footnote 10] Here, the Congress has not just kept its silence by refusing to overturn the administrative construction, [Footnote 11] but has ratified it with chanrobles.com-red
The objectives of § 315 themselves could readily be circumvented but for the complementary fairness doctrine ratified by § 315. The section applies only to campaign appearances by candidates, and not by family, friends, campaign managers, or other supporters. Without the fairness doctrine, then, a licensee could ban all campaign appearances by candidates themselves from the air [Footnote 13] and chanrobles.com-red
Rather than leave this approval solely in the legislative history, Senator Proxmire suggested an amendment to make it part of the Act. 105 Cong.Rec. 14457. This amendment, which Senator Pastore, a manager of the bill and a ranking member of the Senate Committee, considered "rather surplusage," 105 Cong.Rec. 14462, constituted a positive statement of doctrine, [Footnote 14] and was altered chanrobles.com-red
13 F.C.C. at 1251-1252. chanrobles.com-red
In light of the fact that the "public interest" in broadcasting clearly encompasses the presentation of vigorous debate of controversial issues of importance and concern to the public, the fact that the FCC has rested upon that language from its very inception a doctrine that these issues must be discussed, and fairly, and the fact that Congress has acknowledged that the analogous provisions of § 315 are not preclusive in this area, and knowingly preserved the FCC's complementary efforts, we think the fairness doctrine and its component personal attack and political editorializing regulations are a legitimate exercise of congressionally delegated authority. The Communications Act is not notable for the precision of its substantive standards, and, in this respect the explicit provisions of § 315, and the doctrine and rules at issue here which are closely modeled upon that section, are far more explicit than the generalized "public interest" standard in which the Commission ordinarily finds its chanrobles.com-red
Although broadcasting is clearly a medium affected by a First Amendment interest, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 334 U. S. 166 (1948), differences in the characteristics of new media justify differences in the First Amendment standards applied to them. [Footnote 15] 343 U. S. 503 (1352). For example, the ability of new technology to produce sounds more raucous than those of the human voice justifies restrictions on the sound level, and on the hours and places of use, of sound trucks so long as the restrictions are reasonable and applied without discrimination. Kovacs v. Cooper,@ 336 U. S. 77 (1949).
When two people converse face to face, both should not speak at once if either is to be clearly understood. But the range of the human voice is so limited that there could be meaningful communications if half the people in the United States were talking and the other half listening. Just as clearly, half the people might publish and the other half read. But the reach of radio signals is chanrobles.com-red
Where there are substantially more individuals who want to broadcast than there are frequencies to allocate, it is idle to posit an unabridgeable First Amendment right to broadcast comparable to the right of every individual to speak, write, or publish. If 100 persons want broadcast chanrobles.com-red
This is not to say that the First Amendment is irrelevant to public broadcasting. On the contrary, it has a major role to play, as the Congress itself recognized in § 326, which forbids FCC interference with "the right chanrobles.com-red
Rather than confer frequency monopolies on a relatively small number of licensees, in a Nation of 200,000,000, the Government could surely have decreed that chanrobles.com-red
In terms of constitutional principle, and as enforced sharing of a scarce resource, the personal attack and political editorial rules are indistinguishable from the equal time provision of § 315, a specific enactment of Congress requiring stations to set aside reply time under specified circumstances and to which the fairness doctrine and these constituent regulations are important complements. That provision, which has been part of the law since 1927, Radio Act of 1927, § 18, 44 Stat. 1170, has been held valid by this Court as an obligation of the licensee relieving him of any power in any way to prevent or censor the broadcast, and thus insulating him from liability for defamation. The constitutionality of the statute under the First Amendment was unquestioned. [Footnote 17] Farmers Educ. & Coop. Union v. WDAY, 360 U. S. 525 (1959). chanrobles.com-red
It is strenuously argued, however, that, if political editorials or personal attacks will trigger an obligation in broadcasters to afford the opportunity for expression chanrobles.com-red
That this will occur now seems unlikely, however, since, if present licensees should suddenly prove timorous, the Commission is not powerless to insist that they give adequate and fair attention to public issues. chanrobles.com-red
Licenses to broadcast do not confer ownership of designated frequencies, but only the temporary privilege of using them. 47 U.S.C. § 301. Unless renewed, they expire within three years. 47 U.S.C. § 307(d). The statute mandates the issuance of licenses if the "public convenience, interest, or necessity will be served thereby." 47 U.S.C. § 307(a). In applying this standard, the Commission for 40 years has been choosing licensees based in part on their program proposals. In FRC v. Nelson Bros. Bond & Mortgage Co., 289 U. S. 266, 289 U. S. 279 (1933), the Court noted that, in "view of the limited number of available broadcasting frequencies, the Congress has authorized allocation and licenses." In determining how best to allocate frequencies, the Federal Radio Commission considered the needs of competing communities and the programs offered by competing stations to meet those needs; moreover, if needs or programs shifted, the Commission could alter its allocations to reflect those shifts. Id. at 289 U. S. 285. In the same vein, in FCC v. Pottsville Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134, 309 U. S. 137-138 (1940), the Court noted that chanrobles.com-red
The litigants embellish their First Amendment arguments with the contention that the regulations are so vague that their duties are impossible to discern. Of this point it is enough to say that, judging the validity of the regulations on their face as they are presented here, we cannot conclude that the FCC has been left a free hand to vindicate its own idiosyncratic conception of the public interest or of the requirements of free speech. Past adjudications by the FCC give added precision to the regulations; there was nothing vague about the FCC's specific ruling in Red Lion that Fred Cook should be provided an opportunity to reply. The regulations at issue in RTNDA could be employed in precisely the same way as the fairness doctrine was in Red Lion. Moreover, the FCC itself has recognized that chanrobles.com-red
Scarcity is not entirely a thing of the past. Advances chanrobles.com-red
in technology, such as microwave transmission, have led to more efficient utilization of the frequency spectrum, but uses for that spectrum have also gown apace. [Footnote 20] Portions of the spectrum must be reserved for vital uses unconnected with human communication, such as radionavigational aids used by aircraft and vessels. Conflicts have even emerged between such vital functions as defense preparedness and experimentation in methods of averting mid-air collisions through radio warning devices. [Footnote 21] "Land mobile services" such as police, ambulance, fire department, public utility, and other communications systems have been occupying an increasingly crowded portion of the frequency spectrum, [Footnote 22] and there are, apart from licensed amateur radio operators' equipment, 5,000,000 transmitters operated on the "citizens' band," which is also increasingly congested. [Footnote 23] Among the various uses for radio frequency space, including marine, chanrobles.com-red
Comparative hearings between competing applicants for broadcast spectrum space are by no means a thing of the past. The radio spectrum has become so congested that, at times, it has been necessary to suspend new applications. [Footnote 24] The very high frequency television spectrum is, in the country's major markets, almost entirely occupied, although space reserved for ultra high frequency television transmission, which is a relatively recent development as a commercially viable alternative, has not yet been completely filled. [Footnote 25] chanrobles.com-red
The rapidity with which technological advances succeed one another to create more efficient use of spectrum space, on the one hand, and to create new uses for that space by ever-growing numbers of people, on the other, makes it unwise to speculate on the future allocation of that space. It is enough to say that the resource is one of considerable and growing importance whose scarcity impelled its regulation by an agency authorized by Congress. Nothing in this record, or in our own researches, convinces us that the resource is no longer one for which there are more immediate and potential uses than can be accommodated, and for which wise planning is essential. [Footnote 26] This does not mean, of course, that every possible wavelength must be occupied at every hour by some vital use in order to sustain the congressional judgment. The chanrobles.com-red
In view of the scarcity of broadcast frequencies, the Government's role in allocating those frequencies, and the legitimate claims of those unable without governmental assistance to gain access to those frequencies for expression of their views, we hold the regulations and chanrobles.com-red
Because of this chaos, a series of National Radio Conferences was held between 1922 and 1925, at which it was resolved that regulation of the radio spectrum by the Federal Government was essential, and that regulatory power should be utilized to ensure that allocation of this limited resource would be made only to those who would serve the public interest. The 1923 Conference expressed the opinion that the Radio Communications Act of 1912, 37 Stat. 302, conferred upon the Secretary of Commerce the power to regulate frequencies and hours of operation, but when Secretary Hoover sought to implement this claimed power by penalizing the Zenith Radio Corporation for operating on an unauthorized frequency, the 1912 Act was held not to permit enforcement. United States v. Zenith Radio Corporation, 12 F.2d 614 (D.C.N.D.Ill.1926). Cf. Hoover v. Intercity Radio Co., 52 App.D.C. 339, 286 F.1d 03 (1923) (Secretary had no power to deny licenses, but was empowered to assign frequencies). An opinion issued by the Attorney General at Hoover's request confirmed the impotence of the Secretary under the 1912 Act. 35 Op.Atty.Gen. 126 (1926). Hoover thereafter appealed to the radio industry to regulate itself, but his appeal went largely unheeded. See generally L. Schmeckebier, The Federal Radio Commission 1-14 (1932).
Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1, 381 U. S. 11-12 (1965); Udall v. Tallman, 380 U. S. 1, 380 U. S. 16-18 (1965); Commissioner v. Sternberger's Estate, 348 U. S. 187, 348 U. S. 199 (1955); Hastings & D. R. Co. v. Whitney, 132 U. S. 357, 132 U. S. 366 (1889); United States v. Burlington & Missouri River R. Co., 98 U. S. 334, 98 U. S. 341 (1879); 79 U. S. 179-181 (1871); 49 U. S. 68 (1850).