Foreign Ownership Rules Reverse FCC Premise, Oxenford Says
FCC new foreign ownership policies “reverse the presumption” that led to Pandora’s problems with the foreign ownership rules, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post Monday. “Rather than assuming that there was a compliance issue because…
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a company cannot prove that its foreign ownership was less than 25%, the FCC will now conclude that there is an issue only where a company” knows that it has a foreign ownership compliance problem, Oxenford said. Pandora had to seek a declaratory ruling to buy a radio station because some investors in the publicly traded company couldn’t be identified under SEC rules. “The bottom line is that the FCC is moving toward a system of assessing foreign ownership more like that which it uses for non-broadcast services -- one where foreign investment is more normalized and available to bring capital into the broadcast marketplace,” Oxenford said. Commissioners OK'd the foreign ownership rules at their Thursday meeting (see 1609290050).