PMCM TV, LLC v. Federal Communications Commission, et al.

(a) Should courts continue to follow the Chevron policy of deferring to administrative agency interpretations of federal statutes when the federal judiciary is not only uniquely qualified to undertake such interpretations but is also charged by the Constitution with the exclusive power to do so? (b) Where a statute is plain on its face by every canon of statutory construction, should a court under Chevron nevertheless defer to an agency’s contrary interpretation of the statute? (c) The Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 provides that a television station entitled to must-carry status must be carried by cable systems on the channel on which it “broadcasts over the air.” The D.C. Circuit below determined that Congress intended by this language to refer to a station’s virtual channel – not the channel associated with the frequency on which it transmits its signal through the air but a different channel number incorporated into the broadcast channel stream. However, in order to qualify for must-carry status at all, a TV station must “operate” on the channel which it is assigned by the FCC’s table of allotments for broadcast transmissions. If “broadcasting over the air on a channel” is the same as “operating on a channel,” hundreds of television stations which have heretofore qualified for “must-carry” status on local cable television systems will now lose their cable carriage rights and protections. Could Congress have intended this result in a statute whose basic purpose was to ensure that TV stations are fairly carried by cable systems?