Broadcasters Want All Ownership Regulations Relaxed

Though NAB and others said they want the FCC to relax all ownership rules, NAB said it doesn’t expect that to happen. The FNPRM “describes an impossibly high standard to relax the ownership restrictions, effectively protecting the rules against any rational argument for change,” NAB said. That’s “in direct contravention” of the congressional mandate ordering the FCC to review ownership rules every four years, NAB said. Other broadcaster comments also expressed dissatisfaction with the FNPRM, and 21st Century Fox (http://bit.ly/X50YhF) and CBS (http://bit.ly/1usakin) simply re-filed their comments from the 2010 proceeding. The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council also used a past filing, citing the FCC’s failure to include MMTC’s “diversity agenda” in the FNPRM as the reason (http://bit.ly/1kM3Qup). “The flawed FNPRM and uncertainty in the status of this proceeding make filing extensive comments at this time futile,” MMTC said.

The FCC proposal to require disclosure of shared service agreements (SSAs) and eventually make them attributable was the focus of many comments from broadcasters and public interest groups. NAB condemned the commission’s proposed standard for the types of agreements that would have to be disclosed as “overbroad and unrelated to any statutory mandate or public interest harm.” Communications Workers of America endorsed the proposed definition (http://bit.ly/1r2KEGE), which it said “covers all significant collaborations” and “looks at the cumulative effect of the contractual relationships, regardless of the nomenclature used by the parties.” Markets with sharing arrangements have advertising prices 16 percent lower than others, which shows a consumer benefit, NAB said. CWA, United Church of Christ (http://bit.ly/1mqrlnH) and other public interest commenters said the commission should make SSAs and similar arrangements attributable, as are joint sales agreements (JSAs).

Broadcaster opposition to new rules for SSAs extended to asking the commission to get rid of the rule making JSAs attributable, or make it moot by eliminating the rule against local duopolies. The commission should eliminate the local ownership rule before the two-year grandfathering provision on the JSA attribution rule runs out, said the Coalition of Smaller Market Stations (http://bit.ly/1sBLUm1). “It would be fundamentally unfair to expand the application of a burdensome ownership regulation without first reviewing the need for the underlying rule, as Congress required,” said the coalition. Recent data from a GAO (CD Aug 4 p7) report on sharing arrangements shows that discouraging broadcasters from them will have consequences for smaller-market stations, said the coalition. The report “clearly shows that elimination of current sharing arrangements would place the very viability of CW and My Network affiliates in all but the largest markets at risk,” Sinclair said. “It would likely lead to a net decrease in the ability of such stations to serve the public interest, even if they survive.”

Newspaper associations and owners supported the commission’s tentative conclusion to eliminate the newspaper/radio cross-ownership (NBCO) rule, though they said all newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules should be eliminated. “If the FCC truly intends to promote the continued diversity of competitiveness of local markets, it should acknowledge that the NBCO Rule is no longer needed and is in fact impinging on the ability of traditional media to compete,” said Cox Media Group (http://bit.ly/1kM3u73). The Newspaper Association of America (http://bit.ly/1r2KEGE) supported repealing the newspaper/radio rule, but criticized the FCC’s proposal to handle other newspaper cross-ownership with a waiver process. “The Commission’s proposed case-by-case waiver standard for certain newspaper-television combinations in the top 20 markets would provide little relief, particularly in the smaller markets that are often most in need of investments in local journalism,” said NAA.

The FCC can’t justify relaxing newspaper, radio or any other ownership rules because it has “punted” on collecting diversity data on its ownership practices, said Free Press, echoing other public interest groups. Any attempt to alter those rules has to comply with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals requirement for the FCC to gather information on diversity, said the National Hispanic Media Coalition (http://bit.ly/1peMLcf). A joint filing from Common Cause, the United Church of Christ and others disputed the FCC’s tentative conclusions that the record is insufficient to show that race-conscious measures increase diversity. By reaching that conclusion without doing the court-ordered diversity studies, the commission is disobeying the court’s order, the joint filing said. The serious decline in African-American station ownership is the “principal evidence the commission needs,” said the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (http://bit.ly/1pEMpL5).

The FCC shouldn’t expand its top-four ownership prohibition to prevent stations from swapping network affiliation, said LIN Media (http://bit.ly/X510pM), Raycom (http://bit.ly/1peMLcf) and other broadcast commenters. Though the American Cable Association (http://bit.ly/1u2I1ti) characterized such swaps as another way for broadcasters to have joint control of multiple stations in a market, Raycom said the expansion would overstep FCC authority by “entangling the Commission in the naked regulation of content.”