## Facts

- The Communications Act of 1934 requires the FCC to approve broadcast license renewals and transfers only if consistent with “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
- The FCC adopted a Policy Statement concluding that diversity in radio entertainment formats is generally best achieved through market forces and competition among broadcasters.
- Under the Policy Statement, the FCC would ordinarily not treat a station’s change in entertainment format, by itself, as a basis to require a hearing in license renewal or transfer proceedings, absent an independent statutory concern (e.g., discrimination, antitrust, or technical violations).
- Listener groups, including WNCN Listeners Guild, challenged the Policy Statement, arguing that the FCC’s refusal to consider format changes failed to satisfy the FCC’s public-interest duties.
- The D.C. Circuit set aside the Policy Statement, holding that the FCC’s market-based approach was unreasonable and that certain format changes must be treated as substantial and material facts requiring hearings.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari and reviewed whether the Policy Statement was consistent with the Communications Act.

## Issues

1. Whether the FCC may generally decline to review or hold hearings on radio entertainment format changes in license renewal and transfer proceedings while relying on market forces to further program diversity under the Communications Act’s public-interest standard.
2. Whether the Communications Act requires the FCC to treat entertainment format changes as “substantial and material” facts that mandate hearings in certain renewal or transfer cases.
3. Whether the FCC’s policy choice reflects a reasonable agency judgment entitled to judicial deference.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the D.C. Circuit and upheld the FCC’s Policy Statement.
- The Court held that the Policy Statement was not inconsistent with the Communications Act and was a constitutionally permissible method of administering the public-interest standard.
- The Court concluded that the FCC gave a rational explanation for preferring reliance on market forces rather than governmental review of entertainment formats.
- The Court ruled that the D.C. Circuit improperly substituted its own policy assessment for the FCC’s judgment in an area committed by Congress to agency administration.

## Legal Principles

- Congress entrusted the FCC with primary responsibility to apply the Communications Act’s broad “public interest” standard through expert policy judgment.
- When the FCC’s implementation of the public-interest standard reflects a rational weighing of competing policies, courts should not set it aside merely because they would prefer a different approach.
- The Communications Act does not, by its terms, require the FCC to treat entertainment format changes as substantial and material facts requiring hearings in renewal or transfer proceedings.
- The FCC may reasonably conclude that avoiding governmental scrutiny of entertainment formats serves the public interest by preserving licensee discretion, limiting administrative entanglement with content judgments, and reducing risks of chilling innovation, consistent with constitutional constraints.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld the FCC’s decision to rely primarily on market forces to encourage diversity in radio entertainment programming and confirmed that courts must defer to the FCC’s reasonable public-interest policy choices when supported by a rational explanation and not barred by statute.


FCC v. WNCN Listeners Guild, 450 U.S. 582 (1981)