Since August 2018, Maurita Coley has served as the President/CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC).
Under her watch, the MMTC seeks to serve as “the leading national law and policy nonprofit advocating before the FCC, Congress and other federal agencies on behalf of as many as 80 multicultural stakeholders focused on entrepreneurship, access to capital, equal opportunity, C-suite, board, and supplier diversity, and digital equity in the media, Internet and telecommunications industries.”
This former Davis Wright Tremaine media, entertainment and communications attorney and EVP for BET Networks is working extra hard to ensure the MMTC’s mission of late is carried out for its members.
As of May 2019, that means putting a stop to media ownership rule changes that would open the doors to further consolidation, and shut the doors to true diversity in media ownership. This, she believes, involves extending a cable rule to broadcast TV.
Coley, along with President Emeritus and Senior Advisor David Honig, penned Reply Comments in regard to MB Docket No. 18-349, the FCC’s review of the Commission’s broadcast ownership rules.
In the reply comments, the MMTC reiterates its stance that lifting the radio ownership caps or subcaps would severely undermine innovative new entrants, along with small; religious; and minority broadcasters.
It assailed the NAB-backed proposal to do away with ownership limits in aThny market for AM stations, while allowing one company to theoretically own all FMs in a market ranked No. 75 or lower, noted that it would “entirely abandon diversity in medium and small markets, including 26 state capitals.”
The MMTC further claims that, “with a raised cap or subcaps, stations owned by or offered to minority and other disadvantaged or specialized broadcasters would seldom be financially viable.”
But, it is the MMTC’s stance on the “Cable Procurement Rule” that is now getting attention — in particular that of the NAB, which says it can’t be applied to broadcast TV in its own Reply Comments, filed Thursday (5/30) with the Commission.
MMTC, and Coley and Honig, have something to say about that.
“The NAB maintains that because Congress adopted cable procurement requirements without also adopting a broadcast procurement requirement, Congress must have intended to prevent a future Commission from using other sources of legislative authority to adopt a broadcast procurement requirement,” they write. “This argument is neither valid nor based on the facts.”
The MMTC explains that in 1992, Congress prevented the FCC from repealing its TV and Cable EEO rules while remaining silent on whether it could repeal the Radio EEO Rule.
“However, as the FCC carefully reaffirmed in 2002, Congress’ silence on whether the FCC could repeal its radio EEO rules was not a direction to the FCC to abandon radio EEO regulation,” Coley and Honig note.
The NAB also argues that because, in 1992, Congress expressly prevented the Commission from changing its broadcast EEO rules, the Commission is now statutorily barred from adopting a broadcast procurement rule.
Stressing the difference between EEO rules and a procurement rule, the MMTC states, “This is illogical. In 1992 Congress also failed to extend, to broadcasting, thousands of other regulations that are not EEO regulations. While EEO and procurement enforcement happen to be managed by the same staff at the FCC, they are different rules.”
Additionally, the MMTC criticized the NAB for maintaining that strict scrutiny applies because the FCC’s longstanding cable procurement rule, if applied to broadcasters, would “pressure broadcasters to recruit or even reach out to job candidates based on racial classifications” and thus “would trigger strict scrutiny” because “[e]ven an audit or review of broadcasters efforts would impermissibly pressure broadcasters to procure goods and services from providers based on their race or gender to avoid FCC scrutiny.”
The view of the MMTC? “That is absolutely not true.”
“Like the Broadcast (and Cable) EEO rules, the Cable Procurement Rule only requires broad recruitment, such as is done for Broadcast EEO on the internet and voluntarily supplemented by notices to potential sources of applicants – a task that can be done by e-mail,” Coley and Honig state. “Occasional audits ensure that recruitment has been done broadly. There are no quotas. The race or gender of a recruited firm has no impact on the FCC’s compliance review under the Cable Procurement Rule, and would have no impact under a Broadcast Procurement Rule either.”
The NAB, the MMTC points out, also asserts that there is no evidence that the Cable Procurement Rule “has successfully launched minority and women entrepreneurs into operating and ownership positions in the cable and satellite industries.”
While that is one goal of the rule, “that goal has been frustrated by the unique economics of the cable industry under which independent ownership of cable systems is no longer viable.”
They conclude, ” While 40 years ago there were over 40 minority-owned cable franchises; today there are zero. It is the underlying economics of the cable industry that has made independent ownership of cable systems no longer viable, and frustrating minority cable ownership – not regulations. Instead, the primary purpose of the Rule is to provide minorities and women with an alternative means of participation in this important industry. The Rule does this by preventing and proscribing discrimination, and by promoting competition. These are worthy goals by any measure.”
