Court Opinion

ID: 9446534
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:57:43.962976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:41.483041
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the result in No. 13507 solely on the authority of McClatchy Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Comm., 1956, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 199, 239 F.2d 19, certiorari denied Sacramento Telecasters, Inc. v. McClatchy Broadcasting Co., 1957, 353 U.S. 918, 77 S.Ct. 662, 1 L.Ed.2d 665. I read that case to hold that an unsuccessful participant in the comparative proceeding for a construction permit has no standing to protest a subsequent modification of the construction permit unless the modification is so substantial as to affect the underlying basis of the original award.
I dissent, however, from the court’s decision in No. 13168 and No. 13905, affirming the Commission’s award of a construction permit to WBIR for Channel 10, Knoxville, Tennessee. The court recognizes that the source of every preference which the Commission accorded WBIR over Tennessee Television, apart from the preference accorded for integration of management and ownership, arose from the extensive ownership of communications facilities by WBIR stockholders. This genesis is equally true of the preference for “correlation between program planning and securing effective cooperation from local groups,” upon which the court so strongly relies in its support of Commission action.1 I think that by thus attributing to these by-products of concentration a greater degree of importance than it attributes to the traditional, and antipodal, preference for decentralization of ownership of the mass media of communication, the Commission has effectively nullified the diversification arid anti-monopoly policy long since recognized as “one of the basic underlying considerations in the enactment of the Communications Act.” 2
There may be cases in which the Commission can properly find that experience resulting from an applicant’s ownership of communications facilities offsets a competing applicant’s freedom from ownership of other communication interests. But “Commission expertise alone cannot support so pivotal [a divergence]” from *33basic communications philosophy.3 A convincing explanation is required.4 That explanation is not to be found in the one offered by the Commission:
“Thus, with regard to the factor of diversification, we cannot conceive that the ownership by WBIR in Knoxville of a television station can be of such grave concern as to outweigh WBIR’s marked superiority in most other respects.”

. The preference for “correlation between program planning and securing effective cooperation from local groups” is, in fact, identical to the preference for “program implementation,” cited by the court as an incident of concentration. Program implementation was not in itself a category utilized by the Commission as a basis for comparison in the combined hearings below. Rather, program implementation was considered under the more general heading of “program plans.” Under the latter heading, the Commission had found that no preference existed between WBIR and Tennessee TV as to their “program proposals,” another sub-topic of “program plans.” The Commission had found, however, that WBIR had more fully attempted to implement its proposals by securing the cooperation of local groups. It therefore accorded WBIR a preference on the broad category of “program plans.” But WBIR’s ability to implement effectively its program plans followed directly as a result of the contacts which WBIR previously had made in radio broadcasting operations, and therefore resulted directly from WBIR’s ownership of other mass media of communication.

. Multiple Ownership, F.C.C. Report and Order 18 Fed.Reg. 7796, 7797 (1953), citing Federal Comunications Comm. v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, 1940, 309 U.S. 470, 642, 60 S.Ct. 693, 84 L.Ed. 869, 1037.

. See Washington Gas light Co. v. Baker, 1950, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 115, 120-121, 188 F.2d 11, 16-17, certiorari denied 1951, 340 U.S. 952, 71 S.Ct. 571, 95 L.Ed. 686.

. Johnston Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Comm., 1949, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 40, 175 F.2d 351.