SPRINGFIELD TEL. BROAD CORP. v. FEDERAL COM. COM'N, 14050

• Decision Date: 19 June 1958
• Docket Number: No. 14050,14051.,14050
• Citation: 104 US App. DC 13,259 F.2d 170
• Parties: SPRINGFIELD TELEVISION BROADCASTING CORPORATION and Greenfield Television Broadcasting Corporation, Appellants, v. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, Appellee, The Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation and The WGBH Educational Foundation, Intervenors. SPRINGFIELD TELEVISION BROADCASTING CORPORATION and Greenfield Television Broadcasting Corporation, Petitioners, v. The UNITED STATES of America and Federal Communications Commission, Respondents, The Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation and The WGBH Educational Foundation, Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

104 US App. DC 13, 259 F.2d 170 (1958)

SPRINGFIELD TELEVISION BROADCASTING CORPORATION and Greenfield Television Broadcasting Corporation, Appellants, v. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, Appellee, The Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation and The WGBH Educational Foundation, Intervenors.

SPRINGFIELD TELEVISION BROADCASTING CORPORATION and Greenfield Television Broadcasting Corporation, Petitioners, v. The UNITED STATES of America and Federal Communications Commission, Respondents, The Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation and The WGBH Educational Foundation, Intervenors.

Nos. 14050, 14051.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued May 7, 1958.

Decided June 19, 1958.

Mr. Vernon L. Wilkinson, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. James A. McKenna, Jr., Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellants in No. 14050 and petitioners in No. 14051.

Mr. Richard A. Solomon, Asst. General Counsel, Federal Communications Commission, with whom Mr. Edgar W. Holtz, Acting General Counsel, Federal Communications Commission, Mr. Charles C. McCarter, Counsel, Federal Communications Commission, and Mr. Daniel M. Friedman, Attorney, Department of Justice, were on the brief, for appellee in No. 14050 and respondents in No. 14051.

Mr. Percy H. Russell, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Aloysius B. McCabe, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for intervenor The Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation.

Mr. Edgar F. Czarra, Jr., Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Ernest W. Jennes, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for intervenor The WGBH Educational Foundation.

Before PRETTYMAN, BAZELON and BASTIAN, Circuit Judges.

PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge.

These cases are a petition to review and an appeal from orders of the Federal Communications Commission. They involve a phase of the UHF-VHF problem in television. The locale involved is a portion of the Connecticut Valley centered about Hartford.

Allocation of UHF channels began in 1952 with the Commission's Sixth Report and Order. In the Connecticut-Rhode Island area thirteen UHF stations and four VHF stations were allocated, two of the latter to each state. Channel 3 was assigned to Hartford. The proceeding to award the license was a long comparative one and was not concluded until 1956, when Travelers Broadcasting Service Corporation, intervenor here, was awarded a construction permit. The award was originally conditional, due to the present proceedings, but the condition was later lifted.

In the meantime the licenses on the UHF channels, being without contest, were quickly awarded, and the licensees went on the air. In 1954 petitioner-appellant Springfield Television, a UHF operator whose station is at Springfield, Massachusetts, and several other UHF operators in the general area brought proceedings seeking the deletion of the VHF Channel 3 from Hartford. Proceedings were brought twice, and twice the Commission denied deletion. Thereafter came a series of considerations by the Commission revolving about the nationwide problem of VHF-UHF competition. Among other proceedings during this time the Commission instituted a rule-making for the purpose of considering the deletion of Channel 3 from Hartford. The proposal was to shift Channel 3 from Hartford to Providence, Rhode Island, and to substitute in its place a UHF Channel 61. This would have made the Hartford area all UHF except for the one VHF station at New Haven. Proponents and opponents appeared; comments and counter-comments were filed. The Commission issued its Report and Order denying the transfer. After various procedural motions for redetermination, etc., these appeals were taken.

The essence of the contentions of petitioner-appellants is that they are existing UHF licensees in this area and that the grant of a second VHF operation at Hartford (Channel 8 being already in use at New Haven) would provide two Grade A or better VHF signals to the area, thus jeopardizing, if not destroying, petitioner-appellants' operations and depriving a number of communities, entirely dependent on UHF, of their only local outlets. Petitioner-appellants say they are entitled to have such issues "resolved" in a rational and not an arbitrary fashion. They say that, where the impact of administrative action on licensed rights is particular and immediate, existing rights cannot be destroyed except by complying with essential minima of procedural due process. They say they did not have due process here, in that the Commission failed "to face up to and rationally dispose of private and public interest matters"; it did not consider what impact a second VHF station in the Connecticut Valley would have on existing UHF stations; and it did not consider whether the destruction of UHF operations would leave numerous substantial cities with no stations of their own (socalled "white areas"), or whether the reservation of Channel 3 for...