FCC Future of Media Report to Recommend Some Deregulatory Activities
The FCC will recommend some of what amounts to deregulatory actions, in what’s been called the Future of Media report which is slated to be released Thursday, agency and industry officials said. They said the document, which the commission of late has referred to by another name, will include some possible actions the regulator can take to communicate with the public. Report author Steve Waldman will spend some time during Thursday’s commissioner meeting discussing the document, and FCC members will issue statements responding to the study, agency and industry officials said.
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The report is likely to draw a rebuke from Commissioner Michael Copps based partly on his concerns that it doesn’t address some of the problems he has observed in the media industry and sought to address through regulation, industry and agency officials said. The commissioner has been critical of the delay in releasing the report. The Copps office had no comment.
There won’t be a vote on the report, although commissioners’ offices have been able to see a draft of it, FCC officials said Tuesday. No vote and release of commissioner statements are in line with expectations (CD March 9 p4) and the same as occurred with the release last year of the National Broadband Plan. A commission spokesman declined to comment on the media study. “The meeting will include a presentation by the working group on the impact of technology on the information needs of communities,” said the agenda for Thursday’s gathering.
The forthcoming report discusses broadcast issues and some related to the Internet as well, FCC officials said. That’s in keeping with Waldman’s publicly stated mission to examine many areas of news, including those the commission doesn’t have purview over, to fully examine the sector without seeking to regulate what the FCC doesn’t already oversee (CD May 6 p3). Waldman had initially said he hoped to finish the Future of Media report in 2010. Agency and industry officials have said they believed its release was delayed in part by editing of the draft document by the office of Chairman Julius Genachowski.
Communications lawyers and executives from many industries will closely read the report to try to glean what the commission might do in other areas, they said. They cited the ongoing media ownership review that was due to Congress last year and still is being prepared by the Media Bureau. Radio and TV station owners “have been watching this proceeding since it began, concerned about its implications for the multiple ownership review and for the ultimate disposition of the long-pending localism proceeding,” said broadcast lawyer David Oxenford of Davis Wright. “The report has been tied in various statements by FCC commissioners and others to the actions in both of those proceedings ever since the Future of Media proceeding began.”
The third and final section of the report will have some recommendations for the agency, which aren’t binding on the regulator, just as the broadband plan wasn’t, commission officials said. They said there are no recommendations on how to proceed with the media ownership rule review, but the document could be used by broadcasters and others to make their case during the next comment cycle on what the order should conclude. Agency officials expect the next stage of the quadrennial media ownership review to begin with the release this summer of a rulemaking notice seeking comment on academic and other studies commissioned by the FCC. They said the studies’ finish has been delayed in part because the authors are taking time to respond to peer reviewers’ critiques of their work. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
The draft Future of Media document recommends that an enhanced disclosure form for broadcasters to fill out not be finalized by the commission, agency officials said. They noted the agency had approved the form during the tenure of Chairman Kevin Martin, but stations never had to complete it because the document wasn’t approved by the Office of Management and Budget. Instead of using that particular form, the report talks about other ways of giving the public access to information on the type of programming aired by stations, FCC officials said.
Media consolidation doesn’t automatically lead to more news, the draft report says, according to FCC officials. They said it notes that some mergers and acquisitions have increased the amount of news issued by the combined companies, while others haven’t. In considering future M&A, the draft report recommended that the commission take into account the availability of local news, commission officials said. One said the report suggests that factor should be a significant consideration in reviews of deals by the FCC.
The study says the commission should continue communicating with the public using the Internet and by placing items online so more people can get access to commission documents, agency officials said. It said the regulator can keep information on its own site, instead of relying on third-party reports on their own websites. Overall, agency and industry officials said they expect the report to have few surprises in its recommendations section.