METRO BROADCASTING, INC. v. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

Legal Principle at Issue

Whether two race-conscious minority preference policies of the Federal Communications Commission that aimed to promote programming diversity in broadcasting violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment.

Action

Affirmed (includes modified). Petitioning party did not receive a favorable disposition.

Facts/Syllabus

These cases consider the constitutionality of two minority preference policies adopted by the Federal Communications Commission. 

First, the FCC awards an enhancement for minority ownership and participation in management, which is weighed together with all other relevant factors in comparing mutually exclusive applications for licenses for new radio or television broadcast stations. Second, the FCC's so-called "distress sale" policy allows a radio or television broadcaster whose qualifications to hold a license have come into question to transfer that license before the FCC resolves the matter in a noncomparative hearing, but only if the transferee is a minority enterprise that meets certain requirements.

Metro Broadcasting, Inc. sought review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit of an FCC order awarding a new television license to Rainbow Broadcasting in a comparative proceeding, which action was based on the ruling that the substantial enhancement granted Rainbow because of its minority ownership outweighed factors favoring Metro. The court remanded the appeal for further consideration in light of the FCC's separate, ongoing inquiry into the validity of its minority ownership policies. Prior to completion of that inquiry, however, Congress enacted the FCC appropriations legislation for fiscal year 1988, which prohibited the commission from spending any appropriated funds to examine or change its minority policies. Thus, the FCC closed its inquiry and reaffirmed its grant of the license to Rainbow, and the court of appeals affirmed.