Opinion ID: 427192
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Positions of the Claimants

Text: 9 The six cases that now challenge the Tribunal's 1979 Decision can best be understood while identifying the various petitioners and intervenors. 10 No. 82-1372 is brought by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a national trade association of major motion picture companies (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, etc.) which engage in the production and distribution of movies and other programs to television broadcast stations. In this case, MPAA also represents most of the program syndicators (MTM Enterprises, Sandy Frank Film Syndication, etc.) which engage in the business of selling the broadcast rights for television series or movies to a number of broadcast stations. MPAA criticizes the Tribunal for awarding the program suppliers only 70% of the Phase I allocation, especially vis-a-vis the Tribunal's awards to the Joint Sports Claimants and T.V. Broadcasters. The MPAA also criticizes the Tribunal's Phase II allocations to program suppliers other than MPAA, but has filed a separate intervenor's brief defending the Tribunal's Phase II allocations to the extent that they went to MPAA. 11 Nos. 82-1213, 82-1326, 82-1327 are brought by the Christian Broadcasting Network, Old-Time Gospel Hour, and PTL Television Network, owners of syndicated programs with religious themes. These organizations, referred to by the Tribunal as Devotional Claimants, all object to the Tribunal's failure to award them any percentage at all of the Phase II distribution among program suppliers and movie producers. Although each of these organizations raises several distinct arguments, all of the Devotional Claimants assert that the Tribunal arbitrarily dismissed their claims for reasons that were not applied evenly to non-religious, but similarly situated, claimants. As a corollary to this argument, the Devotional Claimants maintain that the Tribunal failed to adequately explain its failure to award them any share of the Phase II distribution. 12 No. 82-1371 is brought by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), representing commercial radio and television stations. NAB objects to the Tribunal's Phase I determination on two grounds: (1) its failure to award television broadcasters a share for their authorship of sports telecasts; and (2) its failure to make any award to commercial radio. In contrast to these objections, NAB files an intervenor's brief defending the Tribunal's Phase I award of 4.5% to U.S. commercial television and its Phase II award of 0.8% to NAB (for station-syndicated programming) from attack by MPAA and the Devotional Claimants. 13 No. 82-1383 is brought by the Spanish International Network (SIN), a producer and syndicator of Spanish language television programs. SIN seeks to increase its 0.7% Phase II allocation at the expense of the Tribunal's Phase II award to MPAA. The MPAA's intervenor brief supports the Tribunal's decision not to award SIN a larger allocation. The Devotional Claimants, especially the PTL Television Network (PTL), attack the Phase II award to SIN in light of the Tribunal's failure to allocate a share to PTL for its Club-PTL Spanish language program. 14 In addition to the intervenor's brief of MPAA and NAB (described above), several other parties have also intervened. The Joint Sports Claimants (JSC), a group that includes the National Collegiate Athletic Association and various professional baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer leagues, intervenes to defend its Phase I award of 15% from attack by MPAA and NAB. Multimedia Program Productions, Inc., a non-MPAA owner of television series and specials (including Donahue and Young People's Specials ), intervenes to defend its Phase II award of 1.6% from attack by MPAA. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) intervenes to defend its Phase I award of 5.25% from attack by MPAA and the Devotional Claimants. Other intervenors are the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), intervening in defense of the Tribunal's Phase I award to the music claimants, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which intervenes to criticize the Tribunal's failure to award a share to commercial Canadian radio broadcasters. 15 Altogether, the petitioners raise a host of procedural and substantive challenges to the Tribunal's 1979 Decision. At the outset, however, there is ample reason to reiterate this court's observation in NAB v. CRT: 16 it seems clear that these claims are motivated essentially by each petitioners feeling that it deserved a larger share of the Fund. Such reactions flow naturally from the not insignificant consequences of changing one or two percentage points in the distribution of $15 million [$20 million in 1979], and the size of the Fund is expected to grow enormously in future years as cable systems become more widespread. 17 675 F.2d at 374 (footnote omitted). In the present cases, moreover, many of the parties' positions are further explained by a comparison of the Tribunal's 1978 and 1979 determinations: 18 1978 1979 Syndicators & producers 75% Syndicators & producers 70% Sports Claimants 12% Sports claimants 15% T.V. broadcasters 3.25% T.V. broadcasters (U.S.) 4.5% Public television 5.25% Public television 5.25% Music claimants 4.5% Music claimants 4.25% Canadian broadcasters 0.75% National Public Radio 0.25% 19 See 47 Fed.Reg. 9,879 (1982) (announcing 1979 distribution); 45 Fed.Reg. 63,026 (1980) (announcing 1978 distribution). Thus, for example, MPAA has switched from being a defender of the Tribunal's 1978 determination (75% to producers and syndicators) to being a challenger of its 1979 determination (70% to producers and syndicators). Conversely, JSC now intervenes in defense of the Tribunal's Decision (15% to sports claimants), whereas last year it sought a larger award at the expense of the producers and syndicators (12% to sports claimants). NAB, although criticizing the 1979 Decision in some respects, otherwise praises the Tribunal's sagacity for increasing the award to U.S. television broadcasters from their 1978 percentage. 20 The parties' manifest self interest does not, of course, diminish their status as petitioners for judicial review of the Tribunal's Decision. We discuss the merits of their claims below. But each claimant's focus on its own slice of the Fund does help to illuminate the complex nature of the task with which the Tribunal was faced. Had each Phase I claimant been awarded its desired allocation, the Phase I distribution would have totalled over 160% of the Fund's available deposits; similarly, satisfying all Phase II claims made by producers and syndicators would have required over 125% of that group's Phase I distribution. These mutually exclusive claims to the $20 million Fund explain, in practical terms, what this litigation is all about.