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FCC tosses petition that challenged licensed of Fox-owned WTXF

The agency found MAD Project didn't prove a link between commentary aired on Fox News and the editorial operations of the TV station.

The agency found MAD Project didn't prove a link between commentary aired on Fox News and the editorial operations of the TV station.

The studios of Fox station WTXF appears in an undated image. (Photo via Google Street View)
The studios of Fox station WTXF appears in an undated image. (Photo via Google Street View)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday dismissed a petition brought by a grassroots organization that challenged an application to renew the broadcast license of a Fox-owned station in Philadelphia.

The dismissal was part of a broader move by the FCC to toss challenges against broadcasters and news media organizations that the agency felt were politically motivated.



The move clears the way for the license of Fox-owned WTXF (Channel 29) to be renewed immediately; the station has been operating under a temporary extension of its prior license for two years while the challenge was pending at the FCC.

The challenge was brought in July 2023 by the Media and Democracy (MAD) Project, a news and journalism accountability organization founded by a New York-area surgeon with the backing of former Fox executives and ex-FCC officials. The organization claimed that Fox Corporation was unfit to hold a broadcast license for WTXF because of a multi-million dollar settlement involving its two cable news channels, Fox News and Fox Business Network, over misinformation related to voting machines used in the 2020 presidential election.



Fox operates its local TV stations and its cable news networks under separate divisions — Fox News and Fox Business fall under Fox News Media, while WTXF and nearly two dozen licensed local TV stations are operated by Fox Television Stations. But MAD Project argued the separate business units were a distinction without a difference, because Fox has historically been owned and controlled by Rupert Murdoch, who admitted in sworn depositions that the he believed the misinformation airing on Fox News and Fox Business related to the voting machines was false, but allowed them to be aired anyway.

The FCC does not regulate cable news channels or the content that airs on them. But the agency does oversee the issuance and renewal of broadcast licenses, which are awarded to individuals or organizations that meet certain criteria, including character qualifications.



The MAD Project’s petition was largely formulated around the notion that Murdoch and Fox could no longer pass a test of character and fitness to hold a broadcast license because of the legal settlement and certain admissions from Fox executives about the cable news content. They argued that Fox News Media and Fox Television Stations share some synergies, including the airing of Fox News-created packages in local TV broadcasts and the distribution of “Fox News Sunday” on broadcast TV.

Still, the petition to deny WTXF’s license was always going to be a long shot. The station garnered broad support from local and state officials and community organizations, many of whom wrote letters — some at the encouraging of Fox — praising the station for its commitment to local news and for its willingness to promote and work with non-profit organizations. State and local lawmakers also filed letters supporting WTXF, affirming much of the same.

Moreover, the MAD Project struggled to definitively link the editorial operations of the cable news channels with that of WTXF. The organization offered no evidence that any of the election-related conspiracies aired on Fox News and Fox Business Network aired on WTXF, in any form.

In a letter affirming its decision to toss the license challenge, FCC officials noted that Fox Broadcasting Network was originally a plaintiff in the voting machines defamation case brought against Fox News Media, but a judge overseeing that case agreed to remove the broadcast network as a plaintiff because there was no evidence linking the network to the allegations.

“In addition, the state court did not find at the summary judgment stage that the licensee’s parent company, Fox Corporation, published the false information,” the FCC wrote in its order on Thursday.

The only conduct that the FCC said could be remotely actionable was WTXF’s apparent failure to file documents involving election-related spots in the station’s public inspection file — but the consequences of that failure hardly rose to the level of outright cancelling the station’s license, and it doesn’t go to the direct question of whether Fox passes the character test to hold a license.

The agency approved the renewal of WTXF’s broadcast license in the same order that tossed the petition brought by MAD Project.

In a statement, a spokesperson for MAD Project said the organization was planning to appeal the decision.

“We look forward to presenting on appeal the multiple court decisions that raise serious questions about the Murdochs’ and Fox’s character qualifications to remain broadcast licensees,” the MAD Project spokesperson said. “As renowned First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams stated in his filing with the Commission, the First Amendment is no bar to Commission action given the facts of this case. Our petition is clearly distinct from the other politically-motivated complaints.”

The spokesperson went on to say that the petition was “based on judicial findings that Fox made repeated false statements that undermined the electoral process and resulted in property damage, injury, and death; that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch engaged in a ‘carefully crafted scheme’ in ‘bad faith’ to deprive Lachlan’s siblings of the control to which they are entitled under an irrevocable trust; and that ‘Murdoch knowingly caused the corporation to violate the law.'”

“It simply will be wrong if the Murdochs and Fox escape any responsibility for their prominent role for the riot at the Capitol on January 6th and the efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election,” the spokesperson affirmed.

While MAD Project may have lost this battle, it has found victory in other parts of the war. An organization that started just two years ago has managed to blur the lines between various parts of Fox’s business, alleging that the conduct of Fox’s two cable news channels is an indictment of how Fox’s business is run as a whole, and that any parts of that business should suffer the consequences accordingly.

That is evident by thousands of public comments made by ordinary people to the FCC over the past two years, nearly all of whom supported the denial of the WTXF license on the basis of the content aired on Fox News.

It is also evident in the MAD Project’s audience on social media: On X (formerly Twitter), the organization has around 2,500 followers, many of whom are media industry reporters, political advisors and similarly-situated activist groups. On Bluesky, a social media platform that has curried favor with progressives since the 2024 presidential election, the organization has over 17,000 followers and is growing by the day.

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About the Author:

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys is a nationally-recognized, award-winning journalist who has covered the business of media, technology, radio and television for more than 11 years. He is the publisher of The Desk and contributes to Know Techie, Digital Content Next and StreamTV Insider. He previously worked for Thomson Reuters, the Walt Disney Company, McNaughton Newspapers and Tribune Broadcasting. Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn by clicking or tapping here.
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