Court Opinion

ID: 9455197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:13:59.633419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:29.950250
License: Public Domain

TAMM, Circuit Judge,
(concurring):
I agree with the result reached and the reasoning advanced in the majority opinion ; in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding regarding the scope of today’s decision, however, I think it desirable to state explicitly several factors which I believe are implicit in the majority’s analysis.
I am in accord with the majority’s conclusion that the Commission was required to balance public gains and losses in television service resulting from approval of the new translator station under the governing standard of “public interest, convenience, and necessity,” in spite of the fact that CATV services are not protected under the Commission’s broadcast rules. Similarly, I think that this standard would require the Commission to embark upon the same kind of inquiry if it appeared likely that the new translator station would interfere with telephone service in the community. At the same time, I do not think that the Commission would be required to undertake this difficult task of balancing if it were claimed that the translator station would interfere with a citizen’s phonograph, or the neon sign in a local hamburger stand; collateral inquiries of this sort could lead the Commission far from the area of its administrative expertise, and inflate the simplest licensing proceeding to unmanageable proportions. In short, I do not interpret the majority opinion to extend any further than the general principle that whenever the Commission undertakes to license one type of communications service, and it appears likely that this new service will degrade or impair the quality of an existing communications service regulated by the Commission, it is required under the public interest standard to balance the gains and losses to the public that will result from the changed conditions in both services.
Thus, I agree that the interference question was “material” for purposes of determining whether a hearing was required under section 309(d)(2); however, I have more difficulty assuming, as the majority apparently does,1 that appellant’s allegations before the Commission satisfied the other test established in section 309(d)(2): that is, that the allegations presented “substantial * * * questions of fact.” It is conceivable that the underlying facts of the controversy indicate that the interference issue is not substantial, as the Commission urged at oral argument, and that even if the appellant can prove all of its allegations the public benefit resulting from the new translator station *644so far outweighs any public detriment from interference with the CATV system that a hearing would be a useless exercise. However, we must look to the Commission’s decision rather than to the arguments which it urges in this court with the benefit of hindsight, and I do not believe that the Commission’s opinion, fairly read, reflects a finding that the issues presented by the appellant were not substantial. As we said in West Michigan Telecasters, Inc. v. FCC, 130 U.S.App.D.C. 39, 42, 396 F.2d 688, 691 (1968), “in order for a court to exercise in any meaningful way its function of review, it is necessary that the Commission state specifically the basis for each of its conclusions.”

. I do not understand the majority to imply that “substantial” is used as a synonym for “material” in section 309(d) (2), so that the Commission must hold hearings on every material question of fact, however trivial, that an opposing party asserts. Such a construction obviously would defeat the purpose of section 309(d)(2), and could involve the Commission in a great deal of needless work.