Five companies sought to defer further the FCC deadline to supplement...

Five companies sought to defer further the FCC deadline to supplement their waiver requests to rules limiting common ownership of a daily newspaper and radio or TV station in a market. Bonneville, Calvary LP, Cox Enterprises, Morris Communications and Scranton Times said delay is warranted because waiver standards aren’t “finally resolved.” Because of a remand of a 2008 cross-ownership rule by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and “the likelihood of one or more petitions for certiorari seeking Supreme Court review,” judicial consideration of the agency’s last quadrennial review of media ownership isn’t over, the companies said. Their lawyers met with Chief Bill Lake and others in the Media Bureau and lawyers in the Office of General Counsel, said a filing Friday in docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/bme8kf). Monday, the bureau delayed the deadline for supplements a 17th time, an extension to Jan. 13 for 100 days, not the usual 90 days (CD June 22 p16). “The extension is necessary to provide additional time for the Commission to consider the Media Parties’ request that the deadline be delayed until 90 days after the issuance of a final court order, including the expiration of the period for all judicial review, on pending judicial challenges to the Commission’s modified newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule,” an order signed by Lake said of the five companies (http://xrl.us/bme8kb).