Opinion ID: 517397
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was the Commission Required to Hold An Ashbacker Comparative Hearing?

Text: 17 In Ashbacker Radio Co. v. FCC, 326 U.S. 327, 333, 66 S.Ct. 148, 151, 90 L.Ed. 108 (1945), the Supreme Court held that where two bona fide applications are mutually exclusive the grant of one without a hearing to both deprives the loser of the opportunity which Congress chose to give him (italics in original). HITN argues that 18 [b]y denying HITN and other nonlocal applicants the opportunity for comparative consideration of the merits of their applications, and granting the mutually exclusive applications filed by local applicants, without making a comparative public interest finding among all the pending applicants, the Commission is acting in direct contravention of the holding of the Supreme Court in Ashbacker. 19 Brief for Appellant at 29-30. This claim is without merit. The Communications Act requires a comparative hearing only when a substantial and material question of fact is presented or the Commission for any reason is unable to make the finding.... 47 U.S.C. Sec. 309(e). The statute does not preclude the FCC from establishing threshold standards to identify qualified applicants and excluding those applicants who plainly fail to meet the standards. As the Supreme Court has stated: 20 We do not read the hearing requirement ... as withdrawing from the power of the Commission the rulemaking authority necessary for the orderly conduct of its business.... We do not think Congress intended the Commission to waste time on applications that do not state a valid basis for a hearing. 21 United States v. Storer Broadcasting Co., 351 U.S. 192, 202, 205, 76 S.Ct. 763, 770, 771, 100 L.Ed. 1081 (1956). This court has also emphasized that deference should be given to the Commission's determinations regarding [t]he substantiality and materiality of purported issues of fact, and the need for further information. United States v. FCC, 652 F.2d 72, 91 n.87 (D.C.Cir.1980) (en banc). 22 In the present case, the parties agree that HITN is a nonlocal applicant, and DBCC a local one, within the meaning of the Commission's rules. The parties also agree that the applications as filed were mutually exclusive. It therefore seems clear to us that no substantial or material issue of fact remains to be resolved. If granted a hearing, the appellant might seek to convince the Commission that HITN's minority ownership, or the diverse range of its proposed programming, are of greater importance than DBCC's local status. The FCC has already determined, however, after notice and comment, that the public interest will best be served if local applicants are granted an absolute priority for a specified period of time. The Commission surely is not obligated to rethink its policies on each occasion that it applies them to a particular set of facts; this would eviscerate the agency's rulemaking authority. Given the absence of disputed factual issues, no Ashbacker hearing is necessary. Such a hearing would either require FCC reconsideration of established policy, or else it would be a pointless formality in which the result was preordained. Nor is the result affected by the fact that HITN's Orlando application was filed prior to the issuance of the FCC Reconsideration. The filing of an application creates no vested right to a hearing; if the substantive standards change so that the applicant is no longer qualified, the application may be dismissed. See Storer Broadcasting, 351 U.S. at 197, 76 S.Ct. at 767. 23 HITN also points out that the pendency of a hearing might induce DBCC to negotiate a compromise which the college would otherwise be unwilling to make. It is certainly possible that HITN would profit from the scheduling of a hearing, even a hearing which it would not expect to win. But to say that HITN might profit if a hearing were scheduled is not to say that the appellant is legally entitled to one. In our view it would be quite bizarre if the Commission were ordered to conduct an otherwise useless hearing simply to provide HITN with additional leverage in its bargaining with a competitor. 24