The FCC’s diversity committee must vote again on a recommendation...

sufficient public notice, and CBS said an inquiry would overstep commission authority. The FCC should conduct a “fact finding inquiry” on the meters, as it does on notices of inquiry, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council Executive Director David Honig said. Because no announcement of the meeting at which the recommendation would be considered ran in the Federal Register, the vote must be redone, Honig said Thursday in an interview. He and Henry Rivera, committee chairman, said the failure to publish the agenda was an oversight. Arbitron said the committee made “no effort” to allow the company to “present its views” at the meeting. Honig said Arbitron didn’t get “a formal invitation.” Rivera said the committee assumed, perhaps wrongly, that Arbitron knew of the meeting. “It’s unfortunate, but certainly nothing intentional, and they'll get another shot here, so I don’t think there’s any harm done,” he said. The re-vote may occur at the committee’s next meeting, on July 28, said Honig and Rivera. CBS voted no at the meeting, but the committee was “very substantially supportive” of the inquiry on the meter’s methodology, said Honig. CBS said the resolution got no “vetting” by a subcommittee, “a stark deviation” from usual committee process: “The resolution urges the FCC to launch an investigation of an entity that holds no FCC license and is clearly not regulated by the agency. We view such expanded Commission jurisdiction inappropriate.” Honig said the commission has both precedent and authority to examine areas impacting diversity, citing FCC payola investigations and section 403 of the Communications Act.