High court declines media ownership challenges - Yahoo! News

High court declines media ownership challenges - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear appeals by media companies challenging whether ownership restrictions are constitutional, leaving it up to federal regulators to decide the appropriate limits.

The high court turned down appeals by media companies, including Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. Inc., which have argued that the ownership limits the Federal Communications Commission set in 2003 violate free speech rights and a 1996 law.

The FCC eased several ownership limits, including a cross-ownership ban on newspapers, television stations and radio outlets in some markets, but kept restrictions to protect smaller markets from being dominated by a few companies.

The Republican-led FCC also eased limits on broadcasters owning more than one television station in a market.

Consumer advocates, arguing that the relaxed limits would hurt diversity in viewpoints and opinions, challenged the regulations in court. A federal appeals court last year agreed to put the rules on hold and ordered the FCC to better justify them.

But many media companies, some of whom were represented in appeals filed by the Newspaper Association of America and other trade groups, contended that the FCC should have eased the ownership restrictions further and appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. They argued that the limits infringed their free speech rights and the 1996 Telecommunications Act."