U.S. v. Midwest Video (Midwest Video I)

Citation: United States v. Midwest Video Corp., 406 U.S. 649 (1972) (Midwest Video I)(full-text).

U.S. Supreme Court Proceedings
The U.S. Supreme Court sustained the Federal Communications Commission’s use of its ancillary authority to issue a regulation that required cable operators to facilitate the creation of new programs and to transmit them alongside broadcast programs they captured from the air.

The Court made clear that the permissibility of each new exercise of ancillary authority must be evaluated on its own terms. The Court asked whether the particular regulation at issue was “reasonably ancillary to the effective performance of the Commission’s various responsibilities for the regulation of television broadcasting.”