Opinion ID: 748821
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: nafta

Text: 14 For the most part, XETV's briefs simply rehash arguments we already rejected in Channel 51: that is, that NAFTA Annex VI somehow prohibits the application of the § 309 issue-responsive programming requirement to analysis under § 325. XETV does not appear to recognize the futility of relying upon reasoning set forth by the Commission in Fox 1, which we rejected in Channel 51 as incorrect. For example, XETV quotes Channel 51 as ruling that NAFTA's Annex VI clearly affects the FCC's ABC 1972 holding, Appellant's Br. at 13, and argues that the FCC could not therefore simply return to its prior position that § 325 incorporated the public interest requirements of § 309. The quoted passage, in its full context, rejects exactly the argument XETV makes in this second appeal, holding that Annex VI 15 clearly affects the FCC's ABC 1972 holding that the presence of a domestic competitor willing to serve as a network affiliate weighs against granting a permit to a foreign station. However, the FCC does not explain why subjecting a foreign station to the same issue-responsive programming requirement to which domestic stations are subject constitutes discrimination against a foreign station on the basis of its nationality. Indeed, such an explanation would be well-nigh impossible to concoct. 16 Channel 51, 79 F.3d at 1191 (emphasis added). In the present appeal, no new allegation has been made of discrimination against XETV in favor of a domestic station; indeed, the Commission has granted Fox's application to rebroadcast through its foreign affiliate, and rejected a challenge by at least one of XETV's domestic competitors. 17 XETV advances several other arguments, contending principally that ABC 1972 does not mean what the Court and the Commission have said that it means. Without revisiting the substantive discussion on the question of discrimination, fully set forth in Channel 51, we shall address a fundamental misconception of XETV. XETV repeatedly protests that the Commission has no authority to condition the grant of a Section 325 permit on the provision of issue-responsive programming by the recipient foreign station. See, e.g., Appellant's Br. at 21 (emphasis added). Under § 325, the licensee is a domestic broadcaster: in this case, Fox Television. The foreign station, XETV, is never the recipient of a § 325 permit; at best, it is a third-party beneficiary of a domestic broadcaster's license. Thus, the condition set forth in Fox 2 is a condition not on the foreign station's permission to broadcast a domestic network's programming, but on the domestic network's permission to use a foreign station to serve a domestic market. There is nothing unreasonable or discriminatory in the Commission's order which we can summarize as requiring a domestic network to serve a local market only via an intermediary which adequately serves the public interest, regardless of whether the local affiliate is located within U.S. borders.