The suit reached the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC (or Prometheus I) that while the FCC had properly justified replacing the older cross-ownership restrictions with the newer cross-media limits, the reasoning they used to justify the rules for the new limits was insufficient, specifically for how the diversity index was calculated with the inclusion of Internet coverage.

[1] The FCC's next required review under the Telecommunications Act came in 2006, which included reassessing the Third Circuit's decision alongside commissioned studies on the state and impact of changing the cross-ownership rules.

It issued new rules in 2008, primarily limiting owners of newspapers to owning one television or one radio station in the top twenty urban markets.

The rules also created a new class of minority-owned broadcasters, which had been suggested from the Prometheus I decision as to assure there would be viewpoint diversity.

[2] With the ongoing action in Prometheus II, the FCC failed to complete its 2010 or 2014 review, and what efforts had been performed had not followed on the cross-media ownership aspects.

The FCC petitioned to the Supreme Court to challenge the ruling from Prometheus IV in April 2020 with the support of the United States Department of Justice.

[6] The Supreme Court granted the petition in October 2020, consolidated it with a challenge from the National Association of Broadcasters, with oral arguments heard on January 19, 2021.

Kavanaugh wrote that the Court found that the FCC's decision to modify or eliminate the prior cross-media ownership rules were not arbitrary and capricious and thus did not violate the APA.