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For Immediate Release
July, 25 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Timothy Karr: 201-533-8838,,tkarr@freepress.net
D.C. Circuit Dismisses Challenge to FCC's Obsolete UHF Discount
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Free Press and other petitioners seeking to overturn the FCC's reinstated "UHF discount" had not established their standing in court to sue the agency over this rule change.
Free Press had filed a challenge, alongside Common Cause, Media Alliance, the Media Mobilizing Project, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Prometheus Radio Project and the United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Inc., against the FCC's April 2017 decision to reinstate the discount.
WASHINGTON
On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Free Press and other petitioners seeking to overturn the FCC's reinstated "UHF discount" had not established their standing in court to sue the agency over this rule change.
Free Press had filed a challenge, alongside Common Cause, Media Alliance, the Media Mobilizing Project, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, Prometheus Radio Project and the United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Inc., against the FCC's April 2017 decision to reinstate the discount.
The groups, represented in court by the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center, argued that the UHF discount is a technically obsolete rule the FCC restored in defiance of the agency's central mandate to promote diversity, competition and localism over the public airwaves.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai promoted the return of the discount, an arcane loophole that allows broadcast-station conglomerates to evade ownership limits by counting just half of their UHF stations' true audience reach toward the congressionally mandated 39 percent national ownership cap.
The court made its judgment today without considering supplemental filings by Free Press and Prometheus Radio Project showing clear standing in this case.
Free Press Deputy Director and Senior Counsel Jessica J. Gonzalez made the following statement:
"We're disappointed that this panel of judges refused to rule on the FCC's phony math and poor excuses for the obsolete and harmful UHF discount.
"It's important to remember that this decision does nothing to bless or approve the FCC's unsupported policy changes and legal claims surrounding the reinstatement of the fossilized UHF loophole. It also offers no opinion on Pai's proposal to unlawfully raise the national ownership cap in yet another rulemaking proceeding still pending at the agency.
"All today's ruling suggests is that Free Press and the other petitioners in this case hadn't shown our standing in our very first submissions to the court. We disagree with that decision. It's especially unfortunate that the FCC and the big broadcasters the UHF discount favors chose to put the question of standing in front of the judges, rather than engaging strictly on the merits -- or lack thereof -- in the agency's decision. We're consulting with our fellow petitioners and the lawyers who handled the case to explore what options we might have in court.
"In light of the unexpected good news out of the FCC last week, when it moved to challenge and likely stop the Sinclair-Tribune merger, one of the worst and most immediate abuses of the UHF discount and other FCC mistakes has been averted for the moment. But we need to keep fighting at the FCC, in court and in Congress to promote real diversity, competition and localism in broadcasting.
"Local broadcast television remains the most important local news source for many people, particularly those in low-income and Spanish-speaking communities. The last thing communities need is fewer perspectives -- and more nationally produced, cookie-cutter propaganda masquerading as local news. The UHF discount and other Pai policy decisions have opened the door to a wave of unprecedented consolidation that will harm people across the United States who deserve diverse and locally produced broadcast media."
Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
(202) 265-1490LATEST NEWS
'National Security Threat'? 95-Year-Old Human Rights Scholar Richard Falk Interrogated for Hours by Canada
"Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds."
Nov 15, 2025
Ninety-five-year-old Richard Falk—world renowned scholar of international law and former UN special rapporteur focused on Palestinian rights—was detained and interrogated for several hours along with his wife, legal scholar Hilal Elver, as the pair entered Canada for a conference focused on that nation's complicity with Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"A security person came and said, ‘We’ve detained you both because we’re concerned that you pose a national security threat to Canada,'” Falk explained to Al-Jazeera in a Saturday interview from Ottawa in the wake of the incident that happened at the international airport in Toronto ahead of the scheduled event.
“It was my first experience of this sort–ever–in my life,” said Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, author or editor of more than 20 books, and formerly the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Falk, who is American, has been an outspoken critic of the foreign policy of Canada, the United States, and other Western nations on the subject of Israel-Palestine as well as other issues. He told media outlets that he and his wife, also an American, were held for over four hours after their arrival in Toronto. They were in the country to speak and participate at the Palestine Tribunal on Canadian Responsibility, an event scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Ottawa, the nation's capital.
The event, according to the program notes on the website, was designed to "document the multiple ways that Canadian entities – including government bodies, corporations, universities, charities, media, and other cultural institutions–have enabled and continue to enable the settler colonization and genocide of Palestinians, and to articulate what justice and reparations would require."
In his comments to Al-Jazeera, Falk said he believes the interrogation by the Canadian authorities—which he described as "nothing particularly aggressive" but "random" and "disorganized" in its execution—is part of a global effort by powerful nations complicit with human rights abuses and violations of international law to “punish those who endeavour to tell the truth about what is happening” in the world, including in Gaza.
Martin Shaw, a British sociologist and author of The New Age of Genocide, said the treatment of Falk and Elver should be seen as an "extraordinary development" for Canada, and not in a good way. For a nation that likes to think of itself as a "supporter of international justice," said Shaw, "to arrest the veteran scholar and former UN rapporteur Richard Falk while he is attending a Gaza tribunal. Clearly, the international repression of the Palestinian cause knows no bounds."
Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, a supporter of the Palestine Tribunal, told Al-Jazeera he was “appalled” by the interrogation.
“We know they were here to attend the Palestine Tribunal. We know they have been outspoken in documenting and publicizing the horrors inflicted on Gaza by Israel, and advocating for justice,” Woo said. “If those are the factums for their detention, then it suggests that the Canadian government considers these acts of seeking justice for Palestine to be national security threats–and I’d like to know why.”
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In video clip posted Friday of a campaign event in the northern town of Caribou from last month, Platner rails against the "structures" of an economy in which billionaires with vast personal fortunes use their wealth to bend government—including the tax code—to conform to their interests while working people are left increasingly locked out of controlling their own destinies, both materially and politically.
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With audience members nodding their heads in agreement, Platner continued by saying, "I refuse to believe that in a state like Maine, where people work as hard as we do here, that it is merely hard work that gets you that kind of success. We all know it isn't. We all know it's the structures. It's the tax code. That is what allows that money to get accrued."
No one works hard enough to justify being a billionaire. pic.twitter.com/Ezvf5fPLfv
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 14, 2025
The systemic reasons that create vast inequality, Platner continued, are also why he believes that the process of the super wealthy becoming richer and richer at the expense of working people can be reversed.
"The world that we live in today," he explained, "is not organic. It is not natural. The political and economic world we have did not happen because it had to. It happened because politicians in Washington and the billionaires who write the policies that they pushed made this happen. They changed the laws, and they made it legal to accrue as much wealth and power as they have now."
The solution? "We need to make it illegal again to do that," says Platner.
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"Love you all, but there’s a few people in here that have a lot more money than me," Eilish said during an award event in New York City. "If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties."
"If you're a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?"
— Billie Eilish clocking billionaires.pic.twitter.com/BVpRExp1GQ
— Billie Eilish Spotify (@BillieSpotify_) October 30, 2025
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Like Platner, the group behind the call—including economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang, and Jayati Ghosh—emphasized the inequality-as-a-policy-choice framework. Piketty, who has called for the mass taxation of dynastic wealth as a key part of the solution to runaway inequality, said “we are at a dangerous moment in human history” with “the very essence of democracy” under threat if something is not done.
On the campaign trail in Maine, Platner has repeatedly suggested that only organized people can defeat the power of the oligarchs, which he has named as the chief enemy of working people in his state and beyond. The working class, he said at a separate rally, "have an immense amount of power, but we only have it if we're organized."
No one from above is coming to save us. It’s up to us to organize, use our immense power as the working class, and win the world we deserve. pic.twitter.com/Xm3ZIhfCJI
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) November 11, 2025
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The mayors-elect in both Seattle and New York City are backing the nationwide strike by Starbucks baristas launched this week, calling on the people of their respective cities to honor the consumer boycott of the coffee giant running parallel to the strike so that workers can win their fight for better working conditions.
“Together, we can send a powerful message: No contract, no coffee,” Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist who will take control of the New York City's mayor office on January 1, declared in a social media post to his more than 1 million followers.
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Socialist Seattle Mayor-elect Katie Wilson's first move after winning the election was to boycott Starbucks, a hometown company. pic.twitter.com/zPoNULxfuk
— Ari Hoffman 🎗 (@thehoffather) November 14, 2025
In his post, Mamdani said, "Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract," as he called for people everywhere to honor the picket line by not buying from the company.
At a rally with New York City workers outside a Starbucks location on Thursday, Mamdani referenced the massive disparity between profits and executive pay at the company compared to what the average barista makes.
Zohran Mamdani says that New York City stands with Starbucks employees!He points out their CEO made 96 billion last year. That’s 6,666 times the median Starbucks worker salary. Boycott Starbucks. Support the workers. Demand they receive a living wage.
[image or embed]
— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) November 12, 2025 at 10:45 PM
The striking workers, said Mamdani, "are asking for a salary they can actually live off of. They are asking for hours they can actually build their life around. They are asking for the violations of labor law to finally be resolved. And they deserve a city that has their back and I am here to say that is what New York City will be."
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