FCC Unlikely to Change TV Station Programming Inquiry to Rulemaking
The FCC seems likely to stick with a notice of inquiry, rather than a rulemaking, in the draft item on TV station programming, political advertising and other disclosure (CD Oct 14 p7) that’s set for a vote at Thursday’s meeting, agency and industry officials told us. They said it seems unlikely for now that the commission will change course before the gathering and make the draft Media Bureau notice of inquiry on programming into a notice of proposed rulemaking. Some nonprofit groups had sought an NPRM, contending an NOI isn’t necessary because the enhanced disclosure proceeding began 11 years ago, while broadcasters have said an NOI is the right way to go (CD Oct 21 p13). And some at the commission still want an NPRM, agency officials said.
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The office of Chairman Julius Genachowski committed in a lobbying meeting Thursday to quick implementation of all parts of the bureau item, said an ex parte filing and one of the meeting attendees. Genachowski’s aides told representatives of nonprofit groups that seek more broadcaster disclosure that the FCC will have final orders on the entire proceeding at hand by March, said attendee Corie Wright, Free Press policy counsel. The proceeding also includes a draft bureau NPRM that proposes to require all TV stations to give to the FCC for posting online their entire public-inspection files. Bundled together for one vote on Thursday are: The public-file NPRM, which also asks about requiring TV stations to post their political files online; the programming disclosure NOI; and an order eliminating a 2007 requirement that was never implemented for TV stations to file Form 355 on the types of local shows they air.
Rules on a successor to Form 355 and on a requirement that TV broadcasters post online information that’s now at their stations on paper but not required to be on the Internet will be in effect by June, under what Genachowski’s aides committed to, Wright said. She and representatives of Georgetown University’s Institute for Public Representation, the Media Access Project and United Church of Christ met Thursday with FCC Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus and Genachowski aides Sherrese Smith and Jessica Almond. “Both the improved broadcaster reporting and modernized public file system are a high priority for the Chairman and” and Commission action is expected in the June “timeframe,” Wright’s filing on the meeting said (http://xrl.us/bmgw8x). A bureau spokeswoman had no comment on the meeting or draft item.
Some public interest officials at the commission were disappointed the bureau didn’t directly move to an NPRM on an update to Form 355, agency and industry officials said. But the FCC didn’t seem likely to switch gears, some said. Free Press will back the public-file and programming disclosure items as long as Genachowski sticks to the promised time frame, Wright said. “Our support for the item is contingent on this aggressive timeframe, because obviously we want the commission to act as expeditiously as possible,” she said. “We were really gratified in the meeting [that] when we presented this time frame, the chairman’s staff was like, ‘Yeah, we think we can do that, we're moving aggressively, this is a high-priority item.'”
The NAB and individual broadcast companies have supported the NOI approach, in recent filings in docket 00-168 (http://xrl.us/bmgw9f). The companies are Barrington Broadcasting, Belo Corp., Dispatch, Gannett, Hearst, Raycom Media and the Washington Post Co.’s TV unit. Those companies support some sort of programming disclosure, said their lawyer, Jon Blake of Covington & Burling. He spoke at an FCC field hearing about implementing the report on the future of the media industry that was done under Genachowski’s auspices (CD Oct 4 p4). A “signature recommendation of the report” was putting public files online, Wright said.
The FCC is also trying to set aide money so its website can play host to the public files, Wright said. Whatever the procedural mechanism the FCC approves at Thursday’s meeting, the agency should require that the entire public file be posted online in time for next year’s presidential and congressional elections, said Tom Glaisyer, a policy fellow at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative. “A very important element is that that NPRM gets moved forward expeditiously, given the upcoming political cycle, where transparency in reporting would be very, very important,” he said: “I would like to see a final order ... definitely before the election.”