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Where can I find the original/historical 47 C.F.R. § 73.34, 73.240 and 73.636? To clarify, I'm looking at wikipedia: Cross ownership rules of 1975, but cannot find the primary source: Amendment of §§73.34, 73.240 and 73.636 of the Commission's Rules Relating to Multiple Ownership of Standard, FM and Television Broadcast Stations, 50 F.C.C. 2d 1046 (1975).

law-cornell:47-cfr-73 is blank for each entry:

The sections were amended/superseded at some point before the Telecommunications Act of 1996. I've found mention to neighboring sections which were amended, for instance tel-com-act-1996-text on fcc.gov comes up with references to 47 C.F.R. § 73.3555 which seems relevant, but is not what I was looking for.

I found an incomplete 1975 memorandum opinion & order on fcc.gov: in the Matter of Revision of rules permitting multiple ownership of non-commercial educational radio and television stations in single markets.... The document closely matches my subject, although the pdf ends after the opinion, without giving the order itself. Interestingly, the pdf opinion mentions section 73.35(not 73.34), although 73.240 or 73.636 are the same.

What happened to these documents? Where do I find them?

1 Answers1

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Ouch! What a pain. As I'm sure you know, the problem is that the sections you are interested in were deleted, so they are no longer listed in the CFR. That means that unlike sections that have just been revised, there's no place to put the earlier revisions. To find those, you'll need to find a version of the CRF from before their repeal.

If you haven't seen this web page on tracing federal regulations from the law library of Congress, you might start with it.

Since it's not clear Lexis/Nexis goes back far enough, your best bet might be a brick and mortar library, preferably a law library. If you can get to a good library, you should start with the research desk. If you are lucky, and you get a good research librarian, you can save a lot of time and frustration.

Many libraries keep the older versions of the federal publications on their shelves. It's possible those older versions will include what you are looking for. (I say possible, because it's also possible that the CFR is the sort of loose-leaf publication that is kept up-to-date by throwing out earlier versions.)

In looking for libraries, you will have much better luck at one that is a Federal Depository. These libraries get all Federal documents. Generally, they are required to allow access to anyone.

It's possible that the regulations you are looking for are in some proprietary data base, such as Lexis/Nexis. They say they the CFR back to 1981. Depending on what that includes, you may find what you are looking for on Lexis.

Individual subscriptions are pretty pricey, but you might be able to get in for free. Many libraries, especially law libraries, have subscriptions. (Your best bet might be the library at a public law school. Many of them let researches use their electronic data bases.)

Just a guy
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