The FCC has been ordered to respond to a writ of mandamus from the Media and Democracy Project seeking to force action on the group’s challenge to the license renewal of Fox Television Stations’ WTXF-29 in Philadelphia. The Commission has 30 days from Tuesday to answer the filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The petition asks the court to compel the full FCC to rule on MAD’s Application for Review of a Media Bureau decision that dismissed the group’s Petition to Deny the station’s renewal. It does not ask the court to decide whether WTXF should keep its license. MAD wants a final Commission order so it can seek judicial review of the merits.
MAD filed the mandamus petition on July 14, 2026, the third anniversary of its original challenge, and later supplemented the case. The group says Chairman Brendan Carr has left the Fox matter pending while the agency moved faster on complaints involving ABC, CBS, and NBC. In the closing days of the prior administration, then-Chair Jessica Rosenworcel had consolidated the MAD petition with complaints against those networks and ordered bureau dismissals. Carr later reinstated the complaints against ABC, CBS, and NBC but not MAD’s challenge to WTXF.
“The FCC cannot indefinitely hide behind bureau decisions and ignore our Application for Review to prevent the courts from reexamining its actions,” Milo Vassallo, MAD’s executive director and co-founder, said when the mandamus petition was filed. Fox has argued that the bureau correctly applied the Communications Act and FCC precedent, and that MAD is using the Philadelphia station as collateral for speech that never aired on WTXF.