Opinion ID: 658298
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lack of Permanence

Text: 14 Whatever the benefits of integration, they would last only if the Commission insisted on licensees maintaining the owner-manager relation or if successful licensees tended to adopt the integrated structure of their own free will. Neither appears to be the case. 15 Perhaps in recognition of integration's artificiality, the Commission has done little to ensure its continuation once the promise of integration has carried an applicant to victory. On the first anniversary of the commencement of program tests, people who have won their station in a comparative hearing must report any deviations from their integration proposals. 47 CFR Sec. 73.1620(g). But as long as they did not misrepresent their intentions in their applications, abandonment of those proposals apparently carries no consequences. See Proposals to Reform the Comparative Hearing Process, 6 F.C.C.Rec. 157 p 22 (1990); Hulse, Horn, Metzger & Wookey, 7 F.C.C.Rec. 5090, 5095 n. 12 (Rev.Bd.1992) (concurrence). After the first anniversary, moreover, no reports are required. Similarly, while successful applicants in comparative hearings generally cannot transfer or assign their stations during the first year of operations, see 47 CFR Sec. 73.3597(a), thereafter a licensee who had won his station through his integration proposal could turn around and sell it ... without regard to the buyer's 'integration' or lack thereof. Bechtel I, 957 F.2d at 880. 2 16 The Commission, while admitting that it has never actually addressed the issue, suggests that an applicant proposing integration and having, at the time of the proposal, a present intention to sell the station after one year would not be entitled to integration credit. First Remand Order, 7 F.C.C.Rec. at 4569 n. 10. But denying integration credit to people who manifest a present intention to sell out quickly--or revoking the licenses of the handful who could after the fact be proved to have misrepresented their intentions--is not the same thing as guaranteeing permanent integration. Indeed, Bechtel has repeatedly challenged the Commission to identify a single instance in which an applicant who won his station on the basis of his integration proposal continued to operate the station as promised for an appreciable period of time. Though such examples surely must exist, the Commission has failed to provide one. According to Bechtel, in fact, the Commission never has made any effort to determine the actual length of time its 'integrated' license winners have owned and operated their broadcast stations. Brief of Petitioner Susan M. Bechtel at 33. 17 The Commission has launched a rulemaking proceeding to consider boosting the one[304 U.S.App.D.C. 105] year holding period for stations won in comparative hearings to three years after the start of operations, and perhaps making parallel changes in the reporting requirement. 8 F.C.C.Rec. 5475 (1993). This proposal would mark a partial return to the policy that prevailed from 1962 until 1982, under which the Commission discouraged efforts to transfer or assign any station held for less than three years. See Procedures on Transfer and Assignment Applications, 32 F.C.C. 689, 691 (1962). The Commission abandoned this policy after concluding that the benefits of a three-year holding period did not outweigh the disadvantages of impeding the flow of resources to their most valued use; in broadcasting as in other businesses, the Commission observed, important services can be performed by people who trade in broadcast properties, rehabilitate ailing stations with new capital and ideas or relieve unwilling licensees of the responsibility of running a station they no longer want. Amendment of the Commission's Rules Regarding Applications for Voluntary Assignments or Transfers of Control, 47 Fed.Reg. 55924 p 28 (1982). And in 1989, in declining to open a proceeding to restore its former anti-trafficking policy, the Commission said, The buyer who is willing and able to pay the market price for a given facility would be more likely to deliver the service audiences want than the owner unable or unwilling to continue station operation. Amendment of Section 73.3597, 4 F.C.C.Rec. 1710, 1710 p 4 (1989). But even if the Commission reaches (and adequately defends) a new conclusion in the pending rulemaking, a three-year holding period would still give it no reason to think that integration proposals will be adhered to on a permanent basis, as the Commission contemplated in 1965. See 1965 Policy Statement, 1 F.C.C.2d at 395 n. 6. 3 18 Bechtel, who proposed to build a station that would serve 21% more people than the facility proposed by the applicant that won the Selbyville permit, argues that the ephemeral period of initial ownership of a broadcast station ... is vastly outweighed as a public interest factor by the lasting impact of a technical facility which provides greater coverage.... Reply Brief of Petitioner Susan M. Bechtel at 1. Since the Commission does not know how long the typical successful applicant adheres to his integrated proposal, it can offer no real response to this argument.