Court OK's waiver for Murdoch's Post p. 35

By: Editorial Staff

A FEDERAL APPEALS has upheld the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) 1993 decision to waive cross-ownership restrictions, and allow Rupert Murdoch to buy back the failing New York Post even though he owns a New York TV station.
The same FCC regulations forced Murdoch to sell the Post after his Australian-based News Corp. acquired what is now WNYW-TV in 1986.
The 1993 waiver ? as the bankrupt Post tottered on the brink of extinction ? was the first time the FCC permanently waived its rule banning one company from owning a TV station and daily newspaper in the same market, except for ownership situations existing before the regulations.
The FCC maintained that saving the Post and its hundreds of jobs outweighed the cross-ownership regulations' intent of preserving media diversity.
Opponents argued that waiving ownership limitations "inhibited" the chances for members of minority groups to own media outlets.
Ruling Jan. 27 that the FCC "was not arbitrary and capricious or unsupported by the record," a three-judge federal appeals panel in Washington rejected all the legal arguments made by the Metropolitan Council of NAACP branches and other groups opposed to the waiver.
Laura Blackburne, attorney for the New York State NAACP, said her client was reviewing whether to appeal.
Cross-ownership rules forced Murdoch to sell the paper in the late 1980s to developer Peter Kalikow, whose bankruptcy sent the Post into a tailspin that nearly spelled its demise. Murdoch bowed to requests from then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and others, and repurchased the Post in September 1993, but only after breaking its Newspaper Guild unit.
Murdoch, who has said he expects the Post to lose $5 million to $10 million a year, greeted the court ruling by saying the paper's future "is now permanently assured."