A federal court denied the preliminary injunction sought by an abortion rights group against Florida to protect TV stations airing abortion rights ads from prosecution by the state’s Department of Health (see 2411050026). Though U.S. District Court for Northern Florida Chief Judge Mark Walker previously granted a restraining order that protected the stations from DOH, he ruled Wednesday that Floridians Protecting Florida didn’t show that it faced likely prosecution with the end of the ad campaign on Election Day. The record supported a limited temporary restraining order to prevent the DOH “from unconstitutionally coercing broadcasters” in the run-up to voting, but FPF “has identified no evidence in this record demonstrating that television broadcasters will continue to be unconstitutionally coerced,” Walker wrote. “Unsurprisingly, the Department of Health has recognized that it is aware of no actual harm resulting from Plaintiff’s political advertisement,” and “the mere possibility of some future enforcement action premised upon an unknown future harm” isn’t enough justification for a preliminary injunction, Walker said. Along with denying the injunction, the order also dissolves the restraining order. FPF and the Florida DOH didn’t comment.

The Florida Department of Health could still prosecute abortion-rights group Floridians Protecting Freedom or stations airing its ads after Election Day, so a preliminary injunction is needed, the group told the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Florida in supplemental filings Tuesday (see 2410290028). The court last week requested supplemental briefs from both sides on whether an injunction would be needed after Election Day and whether the case is now moot because Florida voters that day would be deciding the fate of the amendment that FPF’s "Caroline" advertisement supported. “Even if FPF no longer actively airs ‘Caroline’ via broadcast stations, ‘Caroline’ will continue to be available to the public online; FPF cannot put that speech back in a box,” FPF said. However, “The risk of post-election enforcement appears quite unlikely,” said the Florida Department of Health. The Florida DOH has said it isn’t planning to prosecute TV stations airing the ad, and would do so only if it finds that the ad's message harmed a Florida citizen. The ad says that abortions aren’t available in Florida to save the life of the mother. “FPF raises the specter that the presence of its advertisement online might somehow trigger a belated enforcement action,” the Florida DOH said. “But such a fear is misplaced.” Television “is unique in its ability to reach a captive audience,” the state said. Florida “has never taken the position that it would consider mere publication of the ‘Caroline’ commercial online a sanitary nuisance in Florida,” the state said. “The context and circumstances are entirely different.” In addition, Florida said the case isn’t moot while the ads air on TV but will become so after the election. “It is no answer to suggest that there is some lingering possibility of enforcement in a different, future context,” the state said. “Any risk of enforcement-related harm is highly speculative.” After the election but before the current temporary restraining order against the state expires Nov. 12, Florida will file supplemental materials with the court on whether it has found harms that would trigger prosecution, the state said. FPF said that Florida continuing to “defend the Department’s ability to enforce sanitary nuisance laws as applied to FPF’s speech is itself reason to conclude that this case is not moot.”

Florida Surgeon General John Ladapo and Floridians Protecting Freedom must each file supplemental briefs on whether a preliminary injunction against the state will be needed after Election Day, said an order in U.S. District Court for Northern Florida Tuesday. The injunction, which FPF requested, would bar the state from taking legal action against TV stations running FPF’s campaign ad, which supports a state constitutional amendment limiting Florida from restricting abortions (see 2410290028). At Tuesday’s hearing, FPF said it would cease running the ad after the election, while the state said that it doesn’t plan to bring an enforcement action against stations now but it could later if it finds the ad harmed a Florida resident. Tuesday's order calls for Florida to file a supplemental brief on whether FPF’s claim is now moot, and for FPF to file a supplemental briefing showing that it would still face irreparable harm without an injunction. Both briefs are due Friday, and each side has until Monday to respond to the opposition’s brief, the order said.

Audacy filed a petition for a declaratory ruling asking that the FCC permit foreign ownership of up to 49.99% of the company’s equity and voting interests and specifically approve an investor group of non-U.S. entities that would own more than 5% of the broadcaster. The Sept. 30 FCC order, (see 2409300046) granting Audacy permission to complete its bankruptcy restructuring before going through the agency’s foreign-ownership process, required that Audacy file its foreign-ownership petition within 30 days. A petition for reconsideration of that order was filed Tuesday (see 2410290054). The American company, Laurel Tree Opportunities, would remain Audacy’s single majority shareholder, according to Audacy’s petition. Funds associated with George Soros own Laurel Tree, which drew attention to Audacy’s initial foreign-ownership filing. “For avoidance of doubt, the group of non-U.S. equity holders for which specific approval is sought is entirely unrelated to Laurel Tree; Laurel Tree does not have any foreign ownership,” the petition said. After FCC approval of the foreign-ownership request, “foreign individuals and entities are expected to hold in the aggregate approximately 27.2 percent of the equity and approximately 31.4 percent of the voting interests in Audacy,” the petition said. “Reducing barriers to further investment in Audacy, including by allowing the company to pursue additional capital from non-U.S. investors, will enable it to allocate additional resources to programming and other initiatives.” The foreign ownership of Audacy “is held by several unrelated investors” who won’t have an attributable interest in Audacy and “as such would not be in a position to influence the company’s programming, access personal data, or play an active role in any of its station or related operations.”

The FCC identified tentative selectees in three groups of mutually exclusive applications for noncommercial educational FM construction permits from the November 2021 NCE window, according to an order approved Monday. The order was approved 4-0. Commissioner Anna Gomez recused herself from the item, her office told us. New Beginnings Movement was selected for a permit in Seymour, Indiana, Vida Ministry for a permit in Texas, and Optima Enrichment and Waterloo Christian Radio to enter a time-sharing agreement for a permit in Wisconsin.

A temporary restraining order barring the state of Florida from threatening TV stations over campaign ads related to abortion has been extended for 14 days, said an order Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida (see 2410180050). The restraining order was set to expire Tuesday, the same day as the hearing for a preliminary injunction that would similarly bar the Florida Department of Health (DOH) from acting against TV stations running the ads. The group behind the ads, Floridians Protecting Freedom, requested both the restraining order and the preliminary injunction. The ads support an amendment to Florida’s constitution that would bar the state from limiting abortions, but DOH has argued that they pose a health nuisance by spreading inaccurate information about the state’s abortion policies. Chief Judge Mark Walker extended the restraining order to allow more time for him to rule on the preliminary injunction, Tuesday’s order said. “The parties’ briefing and the arguments raised at the hearing on the motion for preliminary injunction identified new issues with respect to Plaintiff’s claims, which this Court must consider before ruling on the pending motion,” the order said. Neither the state nor Floridians Protecting Freedoms objected to the extension, the order said. The TRO will now expire Nov. 12 or when the court rules on the preliminary injunction, whichever is sooner, said Tuesday’s order.

The FCC should reconsider the foreign-ownership waiver Audacy was granted, said the Media Research Center in a petition posted Tuesday. Previously, MRC filed a petition seeking denial of Audacy's request (see 2404230054). The agency didn't show the order was in the public interest and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel "falsely asserted that her actions were backed up by precedent," said the MRC petition. Though the FCC has granted similar foreign-ownership requests linked to bankruptcies several times, MRC said those proceedings were different because not all of them involved waivers and none included a full commission vote. MRC's petition echoes Commissioner Brendan Carr's argument that bureau-level decisions don't set FCC precedent, making the Audacy order "unprecedented" even though the agency has taken similar actions several times since Carr became a commissioner. The FCC "should reconsider its grant of a waiver that creates a special [George] Soros shortcut for the takeover of Audacy, which owns the second-largest number of broadcast radio stations in the country," the petition said.

The FCC handled the review of Audacy's foreign-ownership request differently from other media rulemakings, said Commissioner Nathan Simington in an email responding to a recent letter to lawmakers from Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel (see 2410250034). The Audacy process “was a sharply accelerated bureau review culminating in an order with a paragraph or two about public interest, which stands in contrast to the seemingly interminable, opaque, and quixotic ‘public interest’ reasoning that has otherwise characterized Commission action on media M&A and rulemaking of late,” Simington said in the email. The Media Bureau has approved a number of similar foreign-ownership requests associated with bankruptcy restructurings in the current and previous administrations without drawing protests. In her letter, Rosenworcel said the FCC’s Republican commissioners delayed the order when they waited 40 days before voting and that their stance was motivated by the involvement of funds associated with George Soros in the Audacy transactions. In his email, Simington conceded the 40-day wait but faulted the FCC for taking 147 days after the Audacy petition was submitted before informing him that the item would be approved at the bureau level. Simington said he was informed that his “perspective on the transaction as a sitting Commissioner was unnecessary and unwelcome,” Simington said. "The Constitution protects the rights of every American to speak his or her mind, even those with whom FCC staff disagree or dislike." But it “does not guarantee anyone whomsoever the right to a peremptory grant of the transfer of hundreds of broadcast licenses on what amounts to zero public interest or foreign ownership review” without an FCC vote, he added. Rosenworcel told lawmakers that granting Audacy’s request doesn’t preempt foreign-ownership review but delays it until the company emerges from bankruptcy. In all previous grants of similar waivers, companies went through the foreign-ownership review process. The FCC has granted every broadcast foreign-ownership request to go before it since the rules were clarified in 2013, an agency spokesperson told us.

The Florida Department of Health won’t pursue enforcement against TV stations for running an ad supporting a state pro-choice measure, said a DOH filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. However, DOH's filing said the ad relayed dangerous false information about the availability of abortions in Florida and so the First Amendment doesn't protect it. “The Constitution does not grant individuals a right to spread false information about the availability of lifesaving medical services,” said the DOH brief. In an affidavit submitted with the filing, a DOH official says the state doesn’t plan to prosecute TV stations over the ad. “The Department is currently unaware of any harm that has arisen from the airing of the ‘Caroline’ commercial,” said the statement from Cassandra Pasley, Florida DOH chief of staff. “Therefore, the Department is not moving forward with an enforcement action under these circumstances.” The stations aren’t facing the threat of enforcement and DOH never directly targeted Floridians Protecting Freedom (FPF) -- the group behind the ad and the lawsuit against Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo -- so FPF doesn’t have standing, DOH argued. Although FPF has said DOH's letters prompted one TV station to drop the ad, FPF hasn’t proven that, DOH said. The FPF ad provides false information because in it a woman says that her doctors knew that if she didn’t end her pregnancy she would die and that Florida has banned abortion in cases like hers. “Florida law expressly permits abortion when the procedure is ‘necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life,'” the DOH filing said. The ad is “an out-and-out falsehood” that could lead vulnerable women in the state to “refrain from seeking lifesaving medical treatment or attempt to obtain such treatment in more dangerous ways because of the commercial’s lies,” the DOH filings said. FPF has presented testimony from physicians in previous court filings saying that under the narrow language of Florida’s abortion laws, the person shown in the ad wouldn't have been able to get a legal abortion. She has terminal cancer and needed treatment to prolong her life, which required termination of the pregnancy. “Because Caroline’s diagnosis was terminal, neither the cancer treatment the doctors wished to provide her, nor the abortion itself, could in fact save Caroline’s life or treat an immediately emergent issue, and thus would not qualify under the narrow existing exceptions to abortion under Florida law,” FPF said. The DOH disputed FPF’s argument and said the cancer information isn't included in the ad. “The fact that an individual will eventually succumb to some other illness does not prevent a doctor in Florida from providing lifesaving care to a pregnant woman,” the DOH filing said. The court should deny the request for a preliminary injunction, but if one is granted, it should expire on Election Day, when the ballot amendment will be decided, it added.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump continued his calls this week for government against CBS over editing of a 60 Minutes interview with his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris (see 2410170051). “When will CBS release their Transcript of the fraudulent Interview with Comrade Kamala Harris?” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. “This may be the Biggest Scandal in Broadcast History!” In an interview with Fox News' Howard Kurtz Sunday, Trump said he was seeking to subpoena CBS’ records about the interview that ran earlier this month. In addition, he said that 60 Minutes should be taken off the air. When Kurtz responded that FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has said the agency would never yank a broadcaster’s license because of a politician’s objections to an interview, Trump appeared unfamiliar with her statement. “Really?” he responded, before reiterating his objections. Trump’s accusations against 60 Minutes are “false,” the program said in a statement Sunday night. 60 Minutes “gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response,” the statement said. Harris’ answer on 60 Minutes “was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment,” the program said. In a post on X Monday, FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington appeared to suggest that 60 Minutes' editing was unlikely to run afoul of the FCC's news distortion rules. "Broadcast news distortion is an extraordinarily narrow complaint category," Simington said. "CBS could easily remove the predicate for any further discussion by releasing the transcript." In a Fox interview last week, Simington appeared to lean the other way (see 2410180058), describing the news distortion complaint against CBS as not "facially ridiculous." He also promised to look into the matter in an online post that Trump shared.