Looks like the Federal Communications Commission needs to fill in some spaces it left blank in a recent decision on its minority media ownership rules. Two organizations filed Petitions for Reconsideration earlier this week asking for some pretty basic clarifications. These would include telling broadcast media brokers exactly how to certify that they haven't been discriminating against minorities. And if the FCC wants to give breaks to minority firms seeking to buy radio and television stations, another group asks, why does it define the "eligible entities" that qualify for this help as small businesses (rather than, say, "minority firms")?

We're here to help?

In early March the FCC issued a lengthy Order designed to help woman- and minority-owned businesses buy more broadcast media. It was a hodgepodge of new and revised rules and initiatives. They included making it easier for minority firms to buy a "distress sale" license—a frequency whose owner has to face an FCC revocation hearing, encouraging banks to participate in Small Business Administration (SBA) guaranteed loan programs to help minority companies buy media, and smoothing the path for big companies to sell off to a minority firm pieces of a "grandfathered" cluster of stations—a combination of licenses bought prior to an FCC broadcast ownership rules change.

Six public interest groups have sent amici curae briefs to the United States Supreme Court with one message: Whatever you decide about the Federal Communications Commission's new "fleeting expletive" indecency policy, don't reverse the court's Red Lion decision—a crucial component of FCC public interest authority.

"Of great importance . . . is that, whatever the outcome in this case, the Court continues to recognize the constitutional legitimacy of the FCC’s statutory public interest oversight of television broadcasters," the groups wrote on June 9th, "especially as they apply to promoting mentally healthy children and families." The filers include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Benton Foundation, Children Now, the National Institute on Media and the Family, the Parent Teacher Association, and the United Church of Christ,

The Supreme Court has agreed to review a circuit court decision striking down the FCC's new policy against dirty words said on the fly—such as Cher's flippant use of the word "fuck" in the 2002 Billboard Music Awards, televised by Fox. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Commission had not adequately explained why it now wants to punish stations for such broadcasts, when in the past it showed leniency towards these slip ups. The high court will hear Fox vs. FCC in the fall.

If the Federal Communications Commission wants to prevail in its crusade to get United States Supreme Court approval of its new "fleeting expletive" policy, it is going to have to convince the High Court of two things. First, the FCC must prove that the broadcasting of dirty words said on the fly somehow actually hurts people, especially children. Second, the agency must demonstrate that it had the legal right to radically alter its policy towards these naughty phrases, which up until the recent past has been relatively benign.The Commission must show that The Law has always granted the agency permission to prosecute abbreviated dirty talk, whether the FCC has historically availed itself of this tacit approval.

Solicitor General Paul Clement's brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of the FCC, submitted on Monday, accomplishes the second task adequately, I think, and the first task not at all. I doubt his arguments will convince many Ars readers. But don't forget: all the DoJ and FCC have to persuade are the Supremes. The Supreme Court will consider the FCC's appeal of a circuit court decision to strike down its recent fleeting expletive rulings this fall. Here's a recap of how we got to this place:

Congratulations to the Journal Broadcasting Group, the latest media company to hop across the Federal Communications Commission's not very deep limits on television duopolies. Journal has won the right to own two TV stations in the Tucson, Arizona market, and to allow one to pretty much operate the other. What's the reason for this particular waiver? The FCC has classified one of the licenses as a "failing station"—that is, a signal that has floundered for "an extended period of time both in terms of its audience share and financial performance." Whoever said that failure isn't an option was wrong, yet again.

The underperforming station in question is Tucson's KWBA, affiliated with the Warner Brothers CW Network. It will now be owned by Journal and more or less overseen by its Tucson sister, ABC affiliate KGUN, also a Journal license. 

A top telecommunications lawyer has filed papers with the Federal Communications Commission that take the hardest line ever against the proposed merger of Sirius and XM satellite radio. Attorney Julian R. Shepard's heavily redacted statement offers "Highly Confidential Documents," he says, that "call into question the truthfulness and candor of both Sirius and XM with respect to their dealings with the Commission as licensees during this proceeding." Shepard files as counsel for the Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio, or "C3SR" as it calls itself for short.

Not surprisingly, the filing urges the FCC to reject Sirius and XM's merger application. But C3SR goes further, suggesting that the companies have been "less than candid" before the government, and that "this conduct raises serious questions that must be investigated." In fact, the agency should consider revoking Sirius and XM's licenses, the 25-page comment concludes.

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The Federal Communications Commission is looking for a bidder to provide free broadband service in the 1.9 GHz-2.1 GHz bands, agency Chair Kevin Martin told reporters on Friday. The data will have to download at a minimum of 768 kilobits, Martin said, provided at a "pretty aggressive" build out schedule: Half the United States population must be able to access it after four years, and 95% by the time the license comes up for renewal. The agency will pony up about 25 Megahertz of spectrum for this in an Advanced Wireless Services auction (AWS-3)—details to be disclosed in a Report and Order unveiled at the Commission's Open Meeting scheduled for June 12th.

There will be one more requirement for the service. A spokesperson for the Commission has told Ars that the FCC wants it to include "content filters." For what? We asked. More

Want a radio station without having to go through the bothersome process of applying and bidding for the license? Critics will doubtless charge that the Federal Communications Commission let that happen last week. The agency rejected challenges to several Idaho outlets in which the objectors warn that the winning bidder won't really run them; instead, a company linked to Clear Channel Communications that loaned the full price of the signal to the "buyer" will enjoy actual control.

The Commission also turned down an appeal suggesting that the agency awarded a major modification grant to an Oklahoma station overseen, for all practical purposes, by Clear Channel. The FCC's dismissals drew ire from Michael Copps, the Commission's senior Democrat. "These cases seem to have an air of unreality about them," Copps declared in a public statement.

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