## Facts

- The FCC adopted 1976 rules governing cable television systems with at least 3,500 subscribers that carried broadcast signals.
- The rules required covered systems to develop a minimum 20-channel capacity by 1986.
- The rules required operators to designate channels for public, educational, local governmental, and leased access use.
- Operators had to provide equipment and facilities for access programming, including at least one public access channel and related production equipment available free of charge to public access users on a nondiscriminatory, first-come basis; other access channels were available at nominal charges.
- The rules largely eliminated operator editorial control over access channels, barring operators from determining or influencing access content except in limited categories (e.g., obscenity and certain prohibited commercial/lottery content).
- Cable operators challenged the rules as beyond the FCC’s authority and as imposing common-carrier-type duties contrary to the Communications Act’s limits on treating broadcasters as common carriers.
- The Eighth Circuit set aside the rules; the FCC petitioned for review.

## Issues

1. Whether the FCC’s mandatory cable “access” rules were within the Commission’s statutory authority as regulation “reasonably ancillary” to its responsibilities over television broadcasting.
2. Whether the Communications Act’s statutory structure, including § 3(h), foreclosed the FCC from imposing common-carrier-type access obligations that remove editorial discretion from cable operators.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment invalidating the FCC’s access rules.
- The Court held the access rules were not “reasonably ancillary to the effective performance” of the FCC’s broadcast-regulatory responsibilities and therefore exceeded the FCC’s statutory authority.
- The Court concluded the rules imposed common carrier obligations by requiring nondiscriminatory, first-come access, limiting permissible charges, and barring operator control over access content.
- The Court distinguished earlier approvals of cable regulation aimed at protecting the broadcast system, concluding these rules instead created a quasi-utility public forum on cable beyond ancillary authority.
- The Court grounded its decision in statutory interpretation rather than the First Amendment.

## Legal Principles

- The FCC may regulate cable television only when the regulation is “reasonably ancillary to the effective performance” of responsibilities assigned by the Communications Act.
- Rules that require a cable operator to hold out channel capacity for public use on a nondiscriminatory basis while removing editorial control have common-carrier characteristics.
- The Communications Act reflects a policy judgment favoring editorial control in regulated programming contexts; absent clear congressional authorization, the FCC cannot impose common-carrier-type public access obligations that displace operator editorial discretion.
- Ancillary jurisdiction does not authorize the FCC to restructure the cable industry with mandates that are not incidental to protecting or regulating the broadcast system.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated the FCC’s mandatory cable access regime because it effectively converted cable operators into common carriers and went beyond regulation reasonably ancillary to the FCC’s broadcast responsibilities under the Communications Act.


FCC v. Midwest Video Corp. (Midwest Video II), 440 U.S. 689 (1979)