John at DIYmedia.net notes that the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia decided on Monday that it would retain jurisdiction over the Prometheus/Media Access Project suit against the FCC’s media rules loosening.

As John observes, this is important because the DC Circuit Court is the one that usually hears challenges to FCC regulation, and their decisions over the last ten years have been decidedly industry/“deregulation”-friendly:

“…when Mikey Powell waves his hands and says ‘don’t blame me, blame Congress and the courts for making me do it,’ he speaks partial truth.

A series of legal challenges brought by media companies, using the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as the chisel, have systematically attacked the FCC’s media ownership rules over the years. This doesn’t excuse how Mikey and friends wrote the rules, but it did provide the impetus to do so.

These challenges have all been conducted in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which traditionally retains exclusive jurisdiction over legal challenges to FCC rules. …

Keeping the case in Philly doesn’t necessarily increase or decrease the chances that some or all of the rules will be overturned, but the D.C. Circuit’s record of buying the Big Media line would’ve surely resulted in different results.