Opinion ID: 397839
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Party Status

Text: 18 WATCH contends that it should have been accorded the status of a full party 13 to the transfer proceedings. Even though its petition to deny concededly was filed long after the expiration of the thirty-day period during which such petitions are accepted as timely, WATCH asserts that it lacked actual notice of the filing of Taft's application and that the thirty-day period therefore should have been tolled. This lack of notice is traced to the understanding of WATCH's president, from an interview with a Taft employee, that Taft would not file its transfer petition prior to December 1978 or January 1979. 14 19 The FCC declined to accept WATCH's petition to deny Taft's application; it termed the petition procedurally defective in that it does not meet the requirements with respect to timeliness, Initial Transfer Order, 73 F.C.C.2d at 657. 15 We agree with that conclusion insofar as it relates to the long period between the public notice of Taft's application on August 17, 1978 and WATCH's petition of March 19, 1979. WATCH, as an organization represented by counsel intimately familiar with the notice procedures employed by the FCC, cannot be heard to say that its failure to learn of the application was justified. 16 In addition, we note that WATCH indicated that it first learned of the application in mid-February of 1979, see Affidavit of Nancy Forbord (President of WATCH), J.A. 151, 152. Why it then waited more than thirty days before filing its petition is unexplained and perhaps inexplicable.
20 We are of a different opinion with regard to the timeliness of WATCH's petition at a later stage of the proceedings. On August 2, 1979, with the FCC's permission, Taft submitted an amendment to its original application. This amendment augmented Taft's proposed programming changes for Channel 20. It was designed to improve the applicant's public interest showing as a justification for a waiver of the Top 50 Policy. Because the only different information before the Commission at its August 16 meeting was this amendment, WATCH contends 17 that the amendment swung the vote from a 3-3 tie to 4-3 in favor of Taft. Consequently, WATCH argues, it was by definition a major amendment triggering a new thirty-day filing period for petitions to deny. See 47 U.S.C. § 309(b), (c) (1976). 21 We agree. The statute gives the Commission the authority to adopt reasonable classifications of applications and amendments, 47 U.S.C. § 309(g) (1976). The regulations in which it has done so classify changes in programming plans as major amendments with regard to applications for license renewals, see 47 C.F.R. § 73.3578(a) (1980), but not with regard to applications for transfer of control, see id. § 73.3578(b). We hold that whatever the merits of this distinction in the typical case, it was not reasonable in this case to style Taft's amendment as minor. Its obvious decisional significance renders such a possibility inconceivable. 18 If we saw any real sense in doing so, therefore, we would remand Taft's application to the Commission and order it to grant WATCH full party status. The mootness of the Top 50 Policy issue, however, together with our finding that no other issues would require a hearing, 19 indicates that a remand would afford WATCH no meaningful relief. 20