On Friday, September 20, 2024, Rachel Stilwell filed an Amicus Brief before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of her clients the musicFIRST Coalition and Future of Music Coalition.  Rachel teamed up with co-author Cheryl Leanza from law firm Best, Best & Krieger, LLP, to argue that the Court should uphold the Federal Communication Commission’s 2023 decision that kept important media ownership regulations in place.  An Amicus Brief is a legal argument by a nonparty in appellate litigation that offers additional information from a “Friend of the Court” (i.e., “Amicus Curiae”) that is interested in the outcome of the case. 

The FCC’s 2023 Order had kept in place one of the only remaining media ownership regulations still in effect after years of severe consolidation of national AM/FM radio owners that harmed diversity, localism and competition between commercial AM/FM broadcast owners. The Local Radio Ownership Rule limits the number of commercial FM radio stations that one entity can own in a given geographic market.  The FCC’s 2023 Order, relying in part upon Rachel’s prior written arguments, retained ownership limits in order to deter local AM/FM monopolies preserve viewpoint diversity. 

The National Association of Broadcasters (“NAB”) and several radio and television conglomerates, unhappy with their losing outcomes and hoping to eliminate nearly all remaining restrictions on commercial radio and television ownership, sued the Federal Communications Commission in federal court in an effort to reverse the FCC’s 2023 Order. 

In addition to keeping restrictions on commercial radio ownership at local levels, the FCC’s 2023 Order also had retained the Local Television Rule, which set limits on how many commercial television stations can be owned by one entity in a given geographic market. Rachel’s colleague and co-author, Cheryl Leanza, has tremendous expertise on television FCC matters, while Rachel has been advocating before the FCC for five years on behalf of musicFIRST and Future of Music in an effort to protect what is left of viewpoint diversity and localism on commercial radio airwaves.  Click here to read the Amicus Brief.

The musicFIRST Coalition is a national coalition of musicians, recording artists, singers, producers, engineers, managers, music businesses, musicians’ unions, record labels (big and small) that works to ensure that music creators receive fair compensation for their work on all media platforms. The founding members of musicFIRST include the SoundExchange, Recording Academy, the Latin Recording Academy, American Association of Independent Music, the American Federation of Musicians, the Recording Industry Association of America, SAG-AFTRA, the Society of Singers, Inc., the Christian Music Trade Association, the Music Managers Forum, Rhythm and Blues Foundation, and the Vocal Group.

Future of Music Coalition is a nonprofit music advocacy think tank.

In addition to Rachel’s clients musicFIRST Coalition and Future of Music Coalition, Amicus Curiae in this case included public interest groups Common Cause, Free Press, NABET- Communications Workers of America, and United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Inc.