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# From the Fairness Doctrine to a Network Sale: The FCC’s Enduring Authority
- URL: https://broadbandbreakfast.com/from-the-fairness-doctrine-to-a-network-sale-the-fccs-enduring-authority/
- Published: 2026-09-30T23:59:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T00:04:31.000Z
- Description: For 38 years, the FCC required competing views on controversial issues across broadcast programming.
- Author: Broadband Breakfast
- Tags: Telecom 150, Fairness Doctrine, Public Interest, FCC, Skydance Media, CBS, Fred J. Cook, Ronald Coase, First Amendment, Red Lion, Tornillo, Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, CPB, #with-siderail, #no-flux

*This article summarizes several of the key points in* [*Lesson 6: The Fairness Doctrine and Public Media*](https://broadbandbreakfast.com/lesson-6-the-fairness-doctrine-and-public-media/)*, which is part of Broadband Breakfast's online course, "*[*150 Years of American Telecommunications*](https://chat.broadbandbreakfast.com/c/section-a-of-150-years-of-telecommunications?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com)*." A new lesson will be released every Monday.*

A person whose character was attacked during a radio discussion of a public issue could once demand free airtime to answer, and the station was obligated to provide it. That requirement grew out of the Fairness Doctrine, which the Federal Communications Commission established in 1949\. The FCC repealed the doctrine in 1987, but the rule requiring reply time after personal attacks remained in force until 2000.

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The Fairness Doctrine applied to every radio and television station holding a federal broadcast license. It required stations to do two things: cover controversial issues of public importance and air contrasting views on those issues. An hour of one-sided argument was permitted so long as the station aired contrasting views in other programs on the same station.

### *The FCC approved a network sale in 2025 with no fairness rule on the books*

Repealing the doctrine did not end the government’s influence over what American broadcasters air. The FCC must approve transfers of broadcast licenses, and on July 24, 2025, it [approved](https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-approves-skydance-paramount-cbs-transaction?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) Skydance Media’s acquisition of Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company. 

Skydance had promised to appoint an ombudsman to review complaints of bias at CBS, though no FCC rule in 2025 required broadcasters to employ one.

The [Communications Act of 1934](https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/communications-act-1934.pdf?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) requires the FCC to determine whether granting or transferring a broadcast license serves the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” That mandate was also the legal basis for the Fairness Doctrine. The doctrine’s repeal left the mandate intact, allowing the FCC to apply the same standard when reviewing the license transfers involved in the Skydance merger.

### *The Supreme Court upheld reply time on radio and rejected it in print*

Broadcasters challenged the Fairness Doctrine as a violation of their First Amendment rights. In 1969, the Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s requirements 8–0 in [*Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/395/367?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com), a case involving a Pennsylvania radio station that aired an attack on journalist [Fred J. Cook](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/04/nyregion/fred-j-cook-92-the-author-of-45-books-many-exposes.html?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) in 1964 and refused his request for free reply time. The court held that limited broadcast frequencies justified giving the public’s right to hear competing views precedence over a broadcaster’s control of its airtime. (Read the full Lesson 6 to see some of the problem with this reasoning.)

In 1974, the high court unanimously struck down a Florida law requiring newspapers to publish replies from political candidates they had criticized in [*Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo*](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/418/241/?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com). The Court held that compelling those replies violated a newspaper’s editorial freedom. Together, *Red Lion* and *Tornillo* upheld a right of reply to personal attacks on broadcast stations but rejected a mandatory right of reply for political candidates criticized in newspapers.

For broadcasters, the Court justified different First Amendment protections on the grounds that frequencies were limited, but economist [**Ronald Coase**](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1991/coase/biographical/?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) argued in 1959 that scarcity affected all economic goods and did not make radio unique. In 1986, federal appeals court Judge [**Robert Bork**](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/801/501/66209/?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) rejected scarcity as a meaningful basis for treating broadcasters differently from newspapers, calling it “a distinction without a difference.” 

Radio stations numbered 10,128 by 1987, compared with 1,657 daily newspapers nationwide.

### *Courts upheld the repeal without ruling on the first amendment*

The Supreme Court had left open the possibility of reconsidering the Fairness Doctrine in *Red Lion*. In 1969, the Court said that if the doctrine inhibited coverage, “there will be time enough to reconsider the constitutional implications.” The FCC’s 1985 Fairness Report concluded that the doctrine discouraged coverage of controversial issues, and the commission voted 4-0 to repeal it in August 1987.

The courts upheld the repeal but did not decide whether the Fairness Doctrine violated the First Amendment. In 1989, the [D.C. Circuit](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/867/654/356962/?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) affirmed the FCC’s finding that the doctrine no longer served the public interest, stating, “We uphold that determination without reaching the constitutional issue.” The Supreme Court denied review in 1990, leaving its decision upholding the doctrine in *Red Lion* intact.

### *Congress funded public broadcasting*

Congress also sought to broaden the programming available to Americans by appropriating funds for public broadcasting. The [Public Broadcasting Act of 1967](https://www.congress.gov/bill/90th-congress/senate-bill/1160/text?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, a nonprofit that distributed federal funding to public radio and television stations. The [Rescissions Act of 2025](https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) canceled $1.1 billion already appropriated to the nonprofit for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

The law was signed on July 24, the same day the FCC approved the Skydance transaction. On Aug. 1, CPB [announced that it would wind down its operations](https://www.npr.org/2025/08/01/nx-s1-5489808/cpb-shut-down-public-broadcasting-trump?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com).

The Fairness Doctrine debate centered on whether government requirements expanded public debate or interfered with editorial freedom. Skydance’s promise to appoint an ombudsman showed that repealing those requirements did not remove newsroom commitments from FCC merger reviews.

Repealing the Fairness Doctrine removed a rule governing broadcast coverage but preserved the FCC’s authority to judge whether license transfers serve what is referred to as the "public interest." Broadcasters seeking approval still have reason to accommodate the FCC. 

Meanwhile, public broadcasting depended on a different exercise of government power. Its funding could also be withdrawn by the officials who controlled it.