Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 U.S. 180, 45 (1997)

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224

TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC. v. FCC

Opinion of the Court

earlier appeal. The District Court's primary opinion disposed of the question in a perfunctory discussion, 910 F. Supp., at 750-751; and the dissent explicitly declined to reach the question, id., at 789. The issue has received even less attention from the parties. It was not addressed in the jurisdictional statement, the motions to affirm, or the appellants' oppositions to the motions to affirm. In over 400 pages of merits briefs, the parties devoted a total of four paragraphs (two of which were relegated to footnotes) to conclusory argumentation on this subject, largely concerning not the merits of the question but whether it was even properly before us. On this state of the record we have insufficient basis to make an informed judgment on this discrete issue. Even if the issue is "fairly included" in the broadly worded question presented, it is tangential to the main issue, and prudence dictates that we not decide this question based on such scant argumentation. See Socialist Labor Party v. Gilligan, 406 U. S. 583, 588-589, n. 2 (1972); Teamsters v. Denver Milk Producers, Inc., 334 U. S. 809 (1948) (per curiam); see also Carducci v. Regan, 714 F. 2d 171, 177 (CADC 1983) (Scalia, J.).

III

Judgments about how competing economic interests are to be reconciled in the complex and fast-changing field of television are for Congress to make. Those judgments "cannot be ignored or undervalued simply because [appellants] cas[t] [their] claims under the umbrella of the First Amendment." Columbia Broadcasting v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U. S., at 103. Appellants' challenges to must-carry reflect little more than disagreement over the level of protection broadcast stations are to be afforded and how protection is to be attained. We cannot displace Congress' judgment respecting content-neutral regulations with our own, so long as its policy is grounded on reasonable factual findings supported by evidence that is substantial for a legislative determination. Those requirements were met in this case, and in

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