The Third Circuit Court of Appeals Friday said its stay of the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership rule rewrite would remain in place, saying it wanted to hear back from the parties to the case on October 1. The stay has been in place for about six years, dating from the FCC's first attempt to rewrite the ownership rules back in 2003 under then-chairman Michael Powell, but more recently extended to the loosening of the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rules in December 2007, under then FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, which were almost immediately challenged in court by both sides of the issue. Among those opposing delaying a court decision were the Newspaper Association of America, Media General, Tribune, CBS, Fox, Gannett and a number of other broadcast groups, who have for years been trying to get some regulatory certainty, though they were looking for the FCC to lift rather than modify the ban. In fact, they challenged the rules in court as not sufficiently deregulatory.
