Court Opinion

ID: 9472712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:08:06.735842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:05.225532
License: Public Domain

WILKEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority denies City of Angels’s motion to intervene and petition to reopen proceedings. It holds that a proceeding to award a television broadcast license — valid for five years — is still “open” after nearly twenty years, in contravention of an earlier decision of this court and at cross-purposes with the logic underlying the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) cutoff rule, the objective of limited-period licensing, and the need to ground licensing decisions on current data in order to reach informed decisions. - The effect of the majority’s decision is to limit competition for channel nine (KHJ-TV) in Los Angeles to what this court has described as two “equally poor contenders.”1 For these reasons, the majority errs in affirming the Commission’s denial of City of Angels’s motion to intervene and petition to reopen; I must respectfully but firmly dissent.
I. Facts
Let us emphasize at the outset that I do not condone any action that would perpetuate RKO’s status as licensee of channel nine in Los Angeles. The charges leveled at RKO — including, but not limited to, illegal foreign payments by its parent company, the General Tire and Rubber Company, illegal tie-ins between sales of the parent’s goods and advertising on RKO, and lack of candor before the Commission — are grave. As one commentator reviewing this case observed, “Agencies rarely are confronted with [such] a large body of admissions capable of being interpreted as a confession of misconduct.”2 Dissenting from a Commission order (on a three to two vote) renewing RKO’s operating license, Commissioner Johnson stated that- the “decision, granting RKO’s renewal application for KHJ-TV in Los Angeles, may very well be the worst decision of this Commission during my term of seven years and five months.”3 Judge Bazelon agreed, adding *668that “[djespite the intense competition for this honor, I am constrained to agree.”4
But our desire to put RKO out of the broadcasting business in Los Angeles should not blind us to the fact that, as playwrights Beaumont and Fletcher put it, “the medicine [may be] worse than the malady.” Federal law requires that television licenses be awarded only after comparative hearings to determine the best qualified licensee.5 The purpose of comparative hearings is ill-served when the pool of candidates is artificially limited to two “equally poor contenders.”6 The alleged improprieties of the incumbent license-holder, RKO, have already been hinted at. But the challenger, Fidelity Television, Inc., did not look much better to the hearing examiner, who concluded that “Fidelity look[ed] bad” from the standpoint of the integration of ownership and management criterion and, along with RKO, was no “bargain as a broadcast licensee.”7 To take a specific instance, Fidelity proposed that two of its shareholders — who were to work only part time and neither of whom had broadcast experience — supervise a paid broadcast staff. The hearing examiner characterized this suggestion as being either “witless[]” or insincere.8
While RKO and Fidelity were competing for the distinction of being the least qualified applicant for channel nine, the ostensible guardian of the public interest, the Federal Communications Commission, was remarkably oblivious to events and to the need for an expeditious resolution of this controversy. This proceeding began in October 1965. The Commission released the Initial Decision of the hearing examiner nearly four years later, on 13 August 1969,9 and did not hear oral argument until two years after that, on 12 October 1971.
As of 22 March 1973, the Commission had still not reached a decision, prompting Fidelity to file a petition for a writ of mandamus in this court. Although we refused to issue the writ, we found the Commission’s decision to have been unreasonably delayed and ordered it to report its progress within thirty days.10 The Commission did report its progress (on 6 July), but had still not issued a decision when Fidelity renewed its petition on 21 November 1973.11 On 6 December 1973, before this court could act, the Commission finally announced its decision.
The Commission reversed the hearing examiner and ordered that “the application of RKO ... IS DEEMED TO BE GRANTED, and that the application of Fidelity ... IS DEEMED TO BE DENIED, subject to whatever action may be deemed appropriate following resolution of the matters in Docket No. 18759 [a license renewal proceeding in Boston].” 12 Two years later, *669this court affirmed, conditional upon the outcome of the Boston proceeding.13
Five years after our affirmance, the Commission determined that RKO was not qualified to be licensee of the Boston station and denied its application for renewal.14 At the same time, it adopted an order in the Los Angeles case finding that RKO lacked the requisite qualifications to remain licensee of KHJ-TV.15 At that time, City of Angels filed a motion for leave to intervene and a petition to reopen proceedings. The Commission did not even consider the motion and petition until three years had elapsed, and then denied City of Angels’s request in a conclusory paragraph.16 The majority denies this motion today; from its opinion I respectfully dissent.
II. Analysis
The comparative hearing between RKO and Fidelity was closed off in 1973 by the action of the FCC; the Commission’s conditional order was affirmed by this court in 1975. From that point on, the Commission could entertain challenges to the license-holder of channel nine only in new proceedings. A new proceeding is ipso facto open to new challengers as well as to Fidelity. Because the instant proceeding cannot reasonably be understood as a continuation of the one begun in 1965 and terminated by the Commission’s order in 1973, it must therefor be a new proceeding in which City of Angels should be allowed to intervene.
A. The Commission’s 1973 Decision Was Final According to a Prior Decision of this Court
Although the majority is quite right to point out that an agency’s construction of its own orders is entitled to substantial deference,17 an earlier decision of this court construed the FCC’s 1973 order conditionally granting RKO’s renewal application as final.18 As we stated in Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission,
The principle of finality in administrative law is not, however, governed by the administrative agency’s characterization of its action, but rather, by a realistic assessment of the nature and effect of the order sought to be reviewed. Hence, “a final order need not necessarily be the very last order” in an agency proceeding, but rather is final for purposes of judicial review when it “impose[s] an obligation, den[ies] a right, or fix[es] some legal relationship as a consummation of the administrative process.” 19
This authoritative decision by a panel of this circuit merits at least as much deference as that showed by the majority to the Commission in this case.
1. The majority’s straw man
The majority sets up a straw man when, describing RKO’s theory of the case, it refutes the argument that “the sole condition contained in the Commission’s grant of its license renewal in the face of Fidelity’s challenge was based upon the reciprocity issue; once this issue was resolved favorably to RKO, the argument goes, the proceeding automatically terminated.”20 If this were an accurate depiction of the *670events, the majority would have a point in wondering why this court remanded after holding that anticompetitive conduct — supposedly the sole ground for defeasance of the renewal license conditionally granted RKO — could not support RKO’s disqualification as broadcast licensee.21
But the condition under which the Commission could strip RKO of its operating license would be removed — and remand rendered inappropriate — only if it pertained solely to anticompetitive conduct. In fact, the Commission’s order predicated RKO’s continued licensure on successfully surviving the challenge to its basic qualifications in the Boston proceeding. The majority acknowledges as much when it states in a footnote that “[tjhis court’s subsequent affirmance of the [FCC’s 1973] order did not purport to in any way modify it; instead, we simply adopted the FCC order.” 22 That order made the renewal of RKO’s operating license “subject to whatever action may be deemed appropriate following resolution of the matters [including anticompetitive conduct and any other matters affecting “basic qualifications”] in Docket No. 18759 [a Boston license renewal proceeding].” 23 Likewise, this court’s af-firmance of the Commission’s 1973 order was made “conditional (as was the Commission’s decision) on the ultimate outcome of the WNAC [Boston] proceedings.” 24
2. The 1974 decision of this court adjudging the FCC’s 1973 order to be final
In 1974 this court rejected the Commission’s contention that “its 6 December [1973] order is not a final decision and therefore is not properly before the court at this time.”25 Instead, “[w]e [held] that the Commission’s decision of 6 December constituted a final order for purposes of judicial review.” 26 We had good reasons for so holding.27
First, we described the indicia of finality within the order and its historical context.
The 6 December order itself purports to be a complete review of the Hearing Examiner's decision in favor of Fideli-ty____ The finality of that determination is manifest in the 6 December order. If the Commission intended merely an interim appraisal of the competing applications on the basis of the Los Angeles record, we are at a loss to decipher why the Commission undertook such a thorough review of each applicant’s qualifications.
Moreover, an interim decision is not what was involved in the two manda*671mus proceedings. The Commission was confronted by two decisions of this court wherein we unequivocally concluded that a final order in the Los Angeles proceeding must issue, but declined to so order the Commission on the basis of its representations that a final decision was forthcoming. The 6 December Commission order either expressed the Commission’s purported effort to comply with this court’s implied directives, or was a deliberate effort to deceive this court or evade its decision.
Fidelity interpreted the 6 December order as final.... When it learned that the 6 December order had issued, it felt that the relief it sought — release of a final order — had been provided by the Commission, and accordingly requested the court to dismiss its renewed petition for writ of mandamus as moot. Had the Commission felt that the order was not a final determination, we fail to perceive why the Commission did not respond to this request____
Another aspect of the 6 December order which reveals its finality is its disposition of RKO’s petition to dismiss Fidelity’s application for a license as moot. If the 6 December order was not a final resolution of the Los Angeles proceeding, the Commission’s rationale in dismissing RKO’s petition escapes us, since such a dismissal is logical only if a final decision on the basis of that record had been made.28
Second, we pointed out that “[t]he impact of the 6 December order on Fidelity buttresses our conclusion” that the order is final and hence reviewable.29 For “[e]ven if the order ‘deeming’ the denial of Fidelity’s application is eventually reversed,” RKO will continue to operate KHJ-TV in the meantime, “at least until the Boston proceeding is terminated.”30
Third, we considered the effect of review on the administrative process in reaching our decision that the Commission’s 1973 order was final. Although “[t]he 6 December order may not be the very last order issued by the Commission in the Los Ange-les proceeding,”
[t]he order was promulgated at the highest level of the Commission after complete evaluation of the entire evidence produced in a proceeding which, as early as 1971, the Commission decided to isolate from the Boston proceeding. That the only applicants involved in the Los Angeles proceeding were RKO and Fidelity, whose comparative qualifications have now been resolved on the basis of the complete record compiled in that proceeding, is persuasive of the order’s finality.31
In conclusion, we exclaimed that “it is clear beyond peradventure that the December order is a final determination of Fidelity’s application on the basis of the record in the Los Angeles proceeding.” 32
3. The propriety of deference to another panel of this circuit
Our opinion in Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission was not intended to be mere language in which “the contending sides [could take] *672... comfort.” 33 That decision was — and until today I thought it remained — the authoritative decision of this court determining whether the Commission’s 1973 order was final; if this court in 1974 decided no more than the majority now says we did, we were wrong to reach the merits of the Commission’s 1973 order because it was not ripe for review. Remarks regarding finality in other opinions, which the majority properly disclaims reliance upon,34 are gratuitous — dic.ta in the strictest sense of that term.
Even if the majority today would not have reached the same result a panel of this court reached in 1974, the earlier judgment of our colleagues should be respected and the legitimate expectation of consistency on the part of agencies and litigants should be fulfilled. As Professors Wright, Miller, and Cooper state in their discussion of the doctrine of law of the case,35 deference is due even with regard to an “issue resolved implicitly despite the lack of any explicit statement.”36 The treatise writers point out that “[rjelationships within a court of appeals demand greater deference to earlier rulings, partly because they typically involve the concurrent judgment of two or more judges, and more importantly because they usually represent a deliberate decision reached in a case that is already well advanced and designed to control further proceedings.”37 It is ironic, given the majority’s willingness to prostrate itself before an administrative agency, that it refuses to respect a prior judgment of this court.
B. The Commission’s 1973 Decision Should Be Construed to Be Final in Light of the Public Interest in Favor of Licensing the Most Qualified Broadcaster
Even if a construction of the Commission’s 1973 order as final were not compelled — and in this case it is — the logic underlying the Commission’s cutoff rule, the theory behind limited-period licensing, and the rapid changes evident in the applicants for channel nine and the community they would serve require that this proceeding be reopened.
1. The purpose of the cutoff rule.
To discharge its responsibility to regulate open-air broadcasting in the “public interest,” the Commission must balance competing considerations. On the one hand, “[tjhere is the palpable public interest in assuring that the limited remaining broadcast facilities go to the best qualified applicant”; on the other hand, “[tjhere is also an interest in procedures and administrative techniques that enable the Commission to handle its work load efficiently, and with optimum use of limited administrative resources.”38 The cutoff rule fulfills the latter function. It is based on the theory that some expedition in achieving finality in *673the award of broadcast licenses is in the public interest. The rule works well in ordinary comparative hearings, but this case is extraordinary—the proceeding has dragged on for nearly twenty years.39 In this case, cutting off new applicants for channel nine insulates both RKO and Fidelity from competition “at precisely the time when the public interest might favor the spur of competition or an alternative licensee.” 40
This desire to promote competition is reflected in the decision of this circuit in New South Media Corporation v. Federal Communications Commission.41 In that ease we held that the Commission could not delay acceptance of competing applications when lengthy hearings had to be held concerning a broadcast licensee’s (RKO’s) basic qualifications.42 Although City of Angels appears here as an intervenor, the purpose of its intervention is to require the Commission to open a new proceeding. In the new proceeding City of Angels, along with various other applicants, would have the opportunity to compete for the license to operate on channel- nine. Based on past experience in the California broadcasting market, the Commission estimates that “[o]ne could therefore reasonably anticipate a sizeable number of applicants for the Los Angeles VHF channel.”43
2. The logic behind limited-period licensing
The communications act limits the duration of broadcast licenses to five years and calls for comparative hearings with new entrants at that time.44 The licensing process assumes that the public benefits from periodic reexamination of the qualifications of incumbent licenseholders and consideration of any challengers who desire to enter the field. After more than nineteen years, the principle of limited-period licensing demands that the ranks be opened up to new challengers, just as they are in the ordinary situation after five years. The Commission cannot square its action here keeping the ranks closed to but two challenges after nineteen years—both discredited in several ways—with the fundamental policy of the act it is administering.
3. Changes in the license applicants and the community they would serve
Because Fidelity, RKO, and the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area they seek to serve have experienced dramatic changes since RKO and Fidelity filed mutually exclusive applications in 1965, the Commission should be required to convene a new proceeding to consider the intervening events and the ability of new challengers to meet the needs of the dynamic Los Angeles community.
The record in this case was first compiled in 1965. Fidelity’s management and investors have changed significantly in the past nineteen years. Almost seventy percent of Fidelity’s stock changed hands between *6741965 and 1983, and the number of shareholders has increased over seven times.45 In addition, a program coordinator and long-time stockholder of Fidelity has twice pled guilty to criminal charges involving fraud and grand theft.46
The status of RKO may also be different from what it was nineteen years ago. On the current record, we cannot know whether this is true or not because the requisite factual inquiry has not been made. But that is precisely the point — until the Commission holds a new evidentiary proceeding we will not know whether RKO has changed in the nineteen years since it filed an application to renew its license to channel nine.
Inquiry into the transformed needs of the Los Angeles service area is perhaps of greatest importance to reaching an intelligent licensing decision — it is also the most glaring deficiency in the current record. Los Angeles is currently experiencing such a great influx of immigrants that some have likened it to an invasion.47 The changes are so dramatic that Los Angeles appeared on the cover of Time magazine just last summer.48 The many transformations include a rapid increase in population (more than two million additional foreign immigrants since 1970)49 and changes in ethnic composition50 of the sort that would impact on selection of a broadcaster to serve the Los Angeles area.51
Language in many decisions of this court evince an unwillingness to allow agencies to make decisions based on outdated and therefore unreliable factual records.52 The majority's observation that these cases "involved some circumstance, generally the *675presence of ex parte contacts, that cast doubt upon the integrity of the Commission’s proceedings,” 53 is at best a partial response. To begin with, there remains the language expressing concern over the staleness of the agency’s record; the majority has no basis for intimating that something akin to ex parte contacts must infect the record before a new evidentiary proceeding becomes mandatory.54 More fundamentally, ex parte contacts and antiquated data are objectionable for the same reason: they render unreliable the data on which the Commission must rely to reach an informed decision. In both cases the remedy is also the same: the unreliable information must be purged and new evidence gathered. That is just the task the Commission should undertake in this case.
To obviate the need for an entirely new proceeding, the majority puts great store in 47 C.F.R. § 1.65 (1983), which requires applicants to inform the Commission of “[sjubstantial and significant changes in information furnished by them to the Commission. The majority’s reliance is misplaced. Fidelity’s disdain for section 1.65, as reflected in the proceeding below, “raises very serious questions” 55 — not the least of which is the extent to which the majority can trust Fidelity to update the record on remand. Nor can RKO be trusted to supply critical information concerning its activities. It has confessed to withholding material financial information from the Commission in the past. Considering the prior record of the information-providers on which the majority would rely, why risk the possibility that the Commission will be unable to compile a record sufficiently fresh to withstand a staleness attack and the inevitable delay attendant upon such a challenge? The passage of nearly twenty years suggests the need for a new proceeding to create a new record and to entertain applications from whatever new contenders demand to be heard.
III. The Spectre of Unending Delay
The FCC's complaint is that granting City of Angels’s motion to intervene, and *676thereby opening up the proceeding to new applicants, will disrupt an otherwise orderly process, delay necessary hearings, and vest RKO with several more years of lucrative ownership of station KHJ.56 The majority harbors the same fear, asserting that “the inevitable result of opening this proceeding to all comers would be yet further delay in determining who should be the licensee of Channel 9 in Los Angeles.”57
Unfortunately, the delay feared by the Commission and the majority will occur whether new applicants are permitted to apply for this license or not. In the first place, on remand the Commission must (1) examine RKO’s fitness to continue as licensee of channel nine (2) examine Fidelity’s basic qualifications, and (3) compare the qualifications of the two prospective licensees. After that arduous task is complete, the Commission — in order to comply with the dictates of the majority — must engage in a wide-ranging expedition to gather information to update the twenty-year-old record.
These monumental tasks could take years. In recognition of this fact, the Commission has already entered a two-phase scheduling order58 under which the second, comparative, phase may not even begin until sometime in 1985. Thus, it is clear that this proceeding will not be over soon, regardless of how we resolve this appeal. In comparison to the resources necessarily committed to resolving the contest between Fidelity and RKO, the additional time consumed by opening up the proceeding to new challengers would probably not be significant. Moreover, the competition of possibly superior candidates for broadcast licenses is worth the small incremental investment that would be occasioned by entertaining their applications.
Ultimately, the total time this license proceeding takes is up to the FCC. If the FCC is determined to act with dispatch, it will do so. More likely, given the FCC’s past inability to resolve the issues in this case in a timely fashion (nearly prompting a writ of mandamus by this court to force the Commission to issue an opinion), this case will linger on for another two decades, whether additional applicants for this channel are allowed in or not.
IV. Conclusion
Because the majority affirms a Commission order denying a motion to intervene in a case which I thought this court had terminated nearly ten years ago, and because its holding today will deprive the citizens of Los Angeles of the benefits of genuine competition in television broadcasting for untold years to come, I respectfully dissent.

. Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 515 F.2d 684, 702 (D.C.Cir.), cert, denied, 423 U.S. 926, 96 S.Ct. 271, 46 L.Ed.2d 253 (1975).

. Tollin, The RKO Case: Unique Facts with Extraordinary Consequences, 35 Fed.Com.LJ. 275, 311 (1983).

. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d 123, 140 (1973) (Johnson, Comm’r, dissenting).

. Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 515 F.2d at 726 (Bazelon, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

. See 47 U.S.C. § 309(e) (1982). The comparative hearing requirement originated in the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashbacker Radio Corp. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 326 U.S. 327, 333, 66 S.Ct. 148, 151, 90 L.Ed. 108 (1945).

. Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 515 F.2d at 702.

. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d 149, 226-27 (Initial Decision 1969); accord Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 515 F.2d at 705 (per curiam) (denying petition for rehearing en banc) ("When the smoke clears away, we are left with the distinct impression that we have a 'nothing' applicant, who has offered a novel construct of a South-land service philosophy; who has an integration philosophy that the examiner correctly derided as being either ‘witless’ or insincere; who has shown lack of candor in certain aspects — and who comes before the FCC rather naked____’’ (footnote omitted)).

. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d at 227.

. See id. at 149.

. Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, No. 73-1313 (D.C.Cir. 22 Mar. 1973) (unreported).

. See Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 515 F.2d 684, 692 (D.C. Cir.), cert, denied, 423 U.S. 926, 96 S.Ct. 271, 46 L.Ed,2d 253 (1975).

. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d 123, 138 (1973).

. See Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 515 F.2d at 703 n. 45.

. See RKO General, Inc. (WNAC-TV), 78 F.C. C.2d 1, 2-3 (1980), modified, RKO General, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 670 F.2d 215, 221-38 (D.C.Cir.1981), cert, denied, 456 U.S. 927, 102 S.Ct. 1974, 72 L.Ed.2d 442 (1982).

. See RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 78 F.C.C.2d 355, 355-56 (1980), modified, RKO General, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 670 F.2d at 221-38.

. See RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 54 Rad. Reg.2d (P & F) 53, 59 (1983).

. See Maj.Op. at 661.

. See Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 502 F.2d 443, 449-52 (D.C.Cir.1974) (per curiam).

. Id. at 448 (footnotes omitted).

. Maj.Op. at 660.

. See id. at 661 (citing RKO General, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 670 F.2d 215, 222-25 (D.C.Cir.1981), cert, denied, 456 U.S. 927, 102 S.Ct. 1974, 72 L.Ed.2d 442 (1982)).

. Id. at 661 n. 4 (citation omitted).

. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d 123, 138 (1973) (emphasis added).

. Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 515 F.2d 684, 703 n. 45 (D.C. Cir.) (emphasis added and citation omitted), cert, denied, 423 U.S. 926, 96 S.Ct. 271, 46 L.Ed.2d 253 (1975).
The Commission convened the Boston proceeding, to which Fidelity was made a party, to consider RKO’s basic qualifications as broadcast licensee. See RKO General, Inc. (KHI-TV and WNAC-TV), 31 F.C.C.2d 70, 75 (1971) (authorizing Fidelity to "participate in the hearing on the designated issues, insofar as such issues pertain to the qualifications of RKO General, Inc., to be a licensee of the Commission”); id. (promising to hold any decision favoring RKO over Fidelity ra Los Angeles in abeyance subject to “such action ... as appears to be necessary and appropriate in light of the evidence introduced in, and the outcome of, the Boston proceeding concerning the qualifications of RKO General, Inc. to be or continue to be a licensee of the Commission”).

. Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 502 F.2d 443, 447 (D.C.Cir. 1974) (per curiam).

. Id. at 444.

. The majority’s lengthy discussion of the breadth of the condition attached to the Commission’s 1973 order, and the scope of Fidelity's participation rights in the Boston proceeding, is beside the point. Absent any more probative evidence, a broad condition combined with a wide-ranging right to participate in a concurrent proceeding detracts from the likelihood that an order is final. But we need not look to such secondary evidence in this case. This court’s 1974 decision is dispositive.

. 502 F.2d at 449-50 (emphasis added and omitted and footnotes omitted).

. Id. at 450.

. Id. The statutory authority for this practice is found at 47 U.S.C. § 307(c) (1982).

. 502 F.2d at 451 (emphasis added).

. Id. at 452 (emphasis added).
The Commission made its 1973 order awarding channel nine to RKO over Fidelity conditional upon RKO successfully surviving the challenge to its basic qualifications to be a broadcast licensee then being made in Boston. This form of defeasible grant resembles a conveyance of title, with a condition subsequent which could lead to divestiture — title is conveyed at the time despite the possibility that the contingency will materialize. The defeasible form of RKO’s license is therefore perfectly consistent with my understanding — and the understanding of our panel in Fidelity — that the FCC’s 1973 decision was a final order which terminated the proceedings relating to channel nine in Los Angeles.

. Maj.Op. at 660.

. See id. at 660-661.

. Law of the case doctrine is not technically applicable under my view of these proceedings: If the proceeding that began in 1965 was terminated by the Commission’s 1973 order and by the 1975 affirmance by this court, then this court's decision holding the Commission's order to be "final’’ and ripe for appeal was rendered in a different proceeding front the current one. But the majority is caught in a dilemma, for if the 1965 proceeding was not terminated in 1973 —which is the upshot of the majority’s holding today — then this court’s earlier decision holding the Commission’s 1973 order to be final is the law of the case and should therefore be followed by the majority. Thus, whichever view one takes of events in this case, City of Angels’s motion to intervene should be granted: If the 1965 proceeding terminated in 1975, then perforce the current proceeding is a new proceeding open to all, including City of Angeles; if the current proceeding is merely a continuation of the 1965 proceeding, the 1974 decision of this court holding the Commission's order to be final is the law of the case, the proceeding thus terminated upon this court’s affirmance in 1975, and the same result is reached.

. 18 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478, at 789 (1981) (footnote omitted).

. Id. at 795-96 (emphasis added).

. Radio Athens, Inc. (WATH) v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 401 F.2d 398, 401 (D.C. Cir.1968).

. A general procedural rule should not be applied in such as a way as to undermine the purposes it was designed to serve. Cf. WAIT Radio v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 418 F.2d 1153, 1157 (D.C.Cir.1969) (“[A] general rule, deemed valid because its overall objectives are in the public interest, may not be in the ‘public interest' if extended to an applicant who proposes a new service that will not undermine the policy, served by the rule, that has been adjudged in the public interest.”), cert, denied, 409 U.S. 1027, 93 S.Ct. 461, 34 L.Ed.2d 321 (1972).

. Carlisle Broadcasting Assoc., 59 F.C.C.2d 885, 889 (1976) (deferment of license renewal application).

. 685 F.2d 708 (D.C.Cir.1982).

. See id. at 715.
The majority’s attempted distinction—that the court in New South Media called for comparative hearings while a comparative hearing already exists in this case—is sterile. A stale record documenting the "qualifications” of two mediocre contenders does not adequately fulfill the objectives of the comparative hearing. Fresh applicants are needed after nineteen years to satisfy the concern for competition at the heart of New South Media.

. Brief for Federal Communications Commission at 23 n. 25.

. See 47 U.S.C. §§ 307(c), 309(e) (1982).

. See Reply Brief of Appellant at 5.

. See id. at 7.

. See The New Ellis Island, Time, 13 June 1983, at 18, 18.

. See id.

. See id. ("[Djuring 1982, according to Rand estimates, more than 90,000 foreign immigrants settled there, and since 1970, more than 2 million.”).

. See id. at 19 ("The statistical evidence of the immigrant tide is stark. In 1960 one in nine Los Angeles County residents was Hispanic, and a scant one in 100 was Asian. Today one in ten is Asian. Nearly a third of the county is now Hispanic, as are almost two-thirds of L.A. kindergartners. Nor is this ethnic sweep a limited, inner-city affair. Although whites have been a minority in the hemmed-in city of Los Angeles for some time (in 1980, 48% of a population of 3 million), the Anglos are now, suddenly, also shy of a majority throughout the whole county (3.8 million out of 7.9 million).' Today, everyone in L.A. is a member of a minority group.”).

. See id. at 19-20 (reporting that many members of various ethnic groups watch their own television stations, do not cross ethnic lines, and retain a foreign tongue as their primary language).

. See WORZ, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 345 F.2d 85, 86 (D.C.Cir.1965) (per curiam) (“[TJhis case has been beset throughout by a variety of dubious circumstances which, at the best, have prolonged the ultimate choice an unconscionably long period beyond the assembling of the facts upon which that choice must of necessity be based ... We are not prepared to say ... that the guardianship of the public interest, entrusted by Congress to the Commission, is adequately effectuated by confining the choice to these two applicants in the light of facts put on the record over ten years ago. We think this proceeding should be reopened, with an adequate opportunity provided for the receipt of new applications from persons who have not hitherto appeared herein."), cert, denied, 382 U.S. 893, 86 S.Ct. 180, 15 L.Ed.2d 150 (1965); Fort Harrison Telecasting Corp. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 324 F.2d 379, 387 (D.C.Cir.1963) ("'[I]t would not be appropriate for the Commission to determine in 1961 on the basis of a somewhat supplemented 1957 record where and to whom VHF Channel 2 ought to be assigned.’ ... We reiterate that under our 1961 order the license of Channel 2 in Terre Haute is to be determined on the basis of the comparative qualifications of applicants as of the present time, rather than on a record made in 1959...." (emphasis added and omitted and citation omitted)), cert, denied, 376 U.S. 915, 84 S.Ct. 665, 11 L.Ed.2d 611 (1964); WORZ, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm’n, 323 F.2d 618, 620-21 (D.C.Cir.1963) (per curiam) (denying petition for rehearing en banc), cert, denied, 376 U.S. 914, 84 S.Ct. 664, 11 L.Ed.2d 611 (1964); Sangamon Valley Television Corp. v. United States, 294 F.2d 742, 743 (D.C.Cir.1961) ("[I]t would not be appropriate for the Commission to determine in 1961 on the basis of a somewhat supplemented 1957 record where and to whom VHF Channel 2 ought to be assigned." (emphasis added)).

. Maj.Op. at 665 n. 12.

. The majority cites Bowman Transp., Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 294-96, 95 S.Ct. 438, 446-47, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974), for the proposition that "a court shall rarely be justified in overturning an administrative decision on staleness grounds.” Maj.Op. at 666 n. 12. But the Court’s ratio decidendi was comprised of narrower grounds. The Court was concerned that if parties to administrative proceedings were able repeatedly to reopen the record on the eve of an agency’s decision, “there would be little hope that the administrative process could ever be consummated in an order that would not be subject to reopening." 419 U.S. at 295, 95 S.Ct. at 446 (quoting Interstate Commerce Comm’n v. Jersey City, 322 U.S. 503, 514, 64 S.Ct. 1129, 1134, 88 L.Ed. 1420 (1944)). The majority does not suggest that the FCC requires twenty years to process a license renewal.
Moreover, the cases cited by Bowman (and Bowman itself) refused to reopen proceedings on grounds of “staleness” when the lapse between evidentiary hearing and decision varied between one and five years. See Bowman Transp., Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 419 U.S. at 294, 95 S.Ct. at 446 (five years); St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 38, 47, 56 S.Ct. 720, 723, 80 L.Ed. 1033 (1936) (one year). The delay in this case is between four and ten times greater than the delay the Court confronted and the changes more dramatic. The remaining cases went off on grounds other than staleness. See United States v. Interstate Commerce Comm’n, 396 U.S. 491, 524, 90 S.Ct. 708, 724, 24 L.Ed.2d 700 (1970) (Interstate Commerce Commission need not take further evidence on merger impact when harm feared did not materialize); Illinois Commerce Comm'n v. United States, 292 U.S. 474, 481, 54 S.Ct. 783, 785, 78 L.Ed. 1371 (1934) (question of fact for the Interstate Commerce Commission); United States v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co., 288 U.S. 490, 494, 53 S.Ct. 406, 407, 77 L.Ed. 914 (1933) (es-toppel).

. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d 123, 127 (1973); see Fidelity Television, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n, 515 F.2d 684, 705 n. 1 (D.C.Cir.) (per curiam) (denying petition for rehearing en banc) (”[T]he Commission stated that there was a ‘repeated failure to make timely and necessary reports of new developments affecting a proposal. It noted that ‘this practice continued even after its [Fidelity’s] attention was directed to the need to keep its house in order.’ ”), cert, denied, 423 U.S. 926, 96 S.Ct. 271, 46 L.Ed.2d 253 (1975); RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 44 F.C.C.2d at 135-36; cf. RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), 54 Rad.Reg.2d (P & F) 53, 60 & n. 40 (1983).

. See Brief for Federal Communications Commission at 27-28.

. Maj.Op. at 667.

. See RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), FCC 84-26, 34251, Nos. 16679, 16680 (25 Jan. 1984); RKO General, Inc. (KHJ-TV), FCC 84M-989, Nos. 16679, 16680 (27 Feb. 1984). The applicants have filed various motions to enlarge the issues in the proceeding which could delay a final disposition of the license to channel nine for many more years to come.