## Facts

- Cowles Florida Broadcasting, Inc. held the expiring television license for WESH-TV, Channel 2, Daytona Beach, Florida.
- Central Florida Enterprises, Inc. filed a mutually exclusive application seeking the same license, requiring a comparative renewal hearing.
- The FCC designated issues for hearing, including comparative public-interest factors (media-ownership diversification and proposed service) and character-related allegations against Cowles.
- The character allegations included claims that mail-fraud charges involving other subsidiaries within Cowles’s corporate family should be treated as disqualifying and that Cowles had improperly moved its main studio in violation of FCC rules.
- An Administrative Law Judge recommended granting Cowles’s renewal and denying Central Florida’s application.
- On review, the FCC affirmed the ALJ and granted renewal to Cowles, denying Central Florida’s application, by a divided Commission vote.
- Petitions for reconsideration were later denied and clarified in a subsequent FCC decision.

## Issues

1. Whether alleged mail-fraud charges involving other subsidiaries within Cowles’s corporate group rendered Cowles unqualified to hold a broadcast license.
2. Whether Cowles’s alleged main-studio rule violation warranted denial of renewal on character or compliance grounds.
3. How the FCC should balance a challenger’s ownership-diversification preference against the incumbent’s past performance and proposed service under the FCC’s comparative hearing criteria.
4. Whether, and to what extent, incumbency and an established service record may be credited in comparative renewal outcomes.

## Decision

- The FCC granted Cowles’s renewal application for WESH-TV and denied Central Florida’s competing application.
- The FCC declined to treat mail-fraud charges involving other corporate affiliates as automatically disqualifying for Cowles absent a sufficient connection to Cowles’s own conduct or fitness.
- The FCC concluded the asserted studio-move violation did not establish disqualifying noncompliance warranting denial of renewal.
- Although Central Florida received a clear comparative preference on diversification of media control, the FCC found Cowles’s service-related showing (including its operating record and proposed service) outweighed that preference in the public-interest balance.

## Legal Principles

- In FCC character analysis, misconduct allegations involving affiliated entities are relevant but not per se disqualifying; the agency looks for a demonstrated connection to the licensee’s own fitness, responsibility, or dealings with the Commission.
- Comparative broadcast licensing applies dual public-interest aims: diversification of media ownership and best practicable service to the public; the FCC may assign controlling weight to service considerations where supported by record findings.
- An incumbent’s demonstrated operational performance may be credited as a comparative service factor in renewal proceedings, even when a challenger is favored on diversification, so long as the FCC explains its public-interest reasoning.

## Conclusion

The FCC renewed Cowles’s television license and rejected a competing application, holding that affiliate fraud allegations and an asserted studio-move violation did not disqualify the incumbent and that Cowles’s comparative service showing outweighed the challenger’s diversification advantage under the Commission’s public-interest analysis.


Cowles Fla. Broad., Inc., 60 F.C.C.2d 372 (1976)