The Court found that it was not, but instead "we are asked to regard the Commission as a kind of traffic officer, policing the wave lengths to prevent stations from interfering with each other."

The Court concluded that the Chain Broadcasting Regulations were simply the particularization of the Commission's conception of the "public interest" sought to be safeguarded by Congress in enacting the Communications Act.

The Opinion of the Supreme Court was not unanimous and it led to a conflict with an earlier decision in Federal Communications Commission v. Sanders Brothers Radio Station.

[2] In Sanders Brothers, the FCC interpreted Supreme Court decisions concerning broadcasting to mean that potential economic injury to an existing licensee was not grounds for refusing to license a competitor.

The opinion of the Supreme Court was delivered by Felix Frankfurter with Justices Hugo Black and Rutledge taking no part in the discussion or decision.

In December 1941, the U.S. Justice Department filed an indictment against both NBC and CBS under the Sherman Antitrust Act with allegations that closely paralleled the findings of the FCC's Report on Chain Broadcasting, but the Justice Department withdrew the indictment after concluding that it was effectively mooted by the Supreme Court's decision to require NBC to divest of its Blue Network.