[7] At the time of the original Prometheus dispute, the FCC also enforced a ban on media cross-ownership, in which any owner of a broadcasting station could not also own the same city's newspaper.

[15] A direct petition to this court was made possible by federal regulations regarding requests for review of agency actions with implications in multiple regions of the country.

The activist group also argued that the FCC's newly created diversity index was built upon unsupported assumptions about the modern characteristics of local media markets.

[1] This holding was based on a Third Circuit precedent in which an administrative action could be halted or delayed if the moving party could demonstrate irreparable harm to itself or communities that it represents.

[17] Meanwhile, Ambro determined that the FCC would face little harm if it was told not to enact new rules which had not yet been put into effect, while the parties worked on finding a resolution to the dispute.

[1] Ambro reasoned that the FCC, when relaxing its cross-ownership rules, had made erroneous assumptions that cable television and the Internet could fill the void caused by consolidation of media ownership.

The court also found that the FCC's diversity index assigned too much importance to Internet availability and assumed that local market share indicated the influence of a media outlet.

[1] Most of the other regulatory changes proposed by the FCC in its 2003 Report and Order were upheld by the court, such as local (as opposed to nationwide) TV and radio ownership rules, because there was evidence that the Commission had made use of analytical methods that had been standardized by the Department of Justice when it reviewed mergers of media companies.

Scirica believed that the court should have deferred to the FCC's expertise on media ownership regulations, while the 1996 Telecommunications Act did not contain a "deregulatory presumption," so the burden of proof rested with those seeking to modify or eliminate the existing rules.

[1] Scirica also cited a precedent, FCC v. National Citizens Commission for Broadcasting, in which the Supreme Court determined that "diversity and its effects are… elusive concepts, not easily defined let alone measured without making qualitative judgments.

[2] This allowed the Third Circuit decision to stand, so the FCC was instructed to adjust the changes to media ownership rules that it had proposed in 2003, for later review by the same court.

[5] Similarly to its three previous rulings, the Third Circuit again upheld some of the FCC's changes to media ownership limits but struck down others due to poor reasoning and lack of evidence for their potential success or usefulness.

[21] David Pritchard et al. have argued that arguments both for and against cross-ownership regulations have become moot, due to evidence that different media outlets can have diverse viewpoints even if they have the same owner.

[22] A similar conclusion was reached by Daniel Ho and Kevin Quinn, who noted "In short, [media] consolidation does not inexorably lead to convergence or divergence.