WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FCC on Tuesday established comment and reply comment deadlines for public input on its latest Quadrennial Review, a look at broadcast ownership it is required to conduct by law.
The Commission’s MB Docket No. 22-459 is its 2022 review of the radio and television ownership landscape, and on December 22 the Media Bureau released a Public Notice seeking comment, pursuant to the obligation under section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, on whether the media ownership rules remain “necessary in the public interest as the result of competition.”
As previously noted, comment and reply comment dates would not be affirmed until a summary of the 2022 Quadrennial Public Notice, including notice of the deadlines for filing comments and reply comments, was published in the Federal Register. That transpired on Tuesday.
As such, the deadline for filing comments is March 3, 2023, and the deadline for filing reply comments is March 20, 2023.
Back in 2020, a previous FCC’s media ownership order had sought to:
– Eliminate the ban on owning a print newspaper and any radio or TV station in the same market.
– Remove the restrictions on owning radio stations along with a TV station in the same market;
– Revise the rule that limits the ownership of TV stations in local markets;
– Reverse its previous decision effectively banning the joint sale of even modest amounts of advertising time by two same-market TV stations; and
reform the FCC’s approach to embedded markets.
That was halted by The Third Circuit which concluded the Commission inadequately considered the effect of those changes on minority and female ownership— even though Section 202(h) says nothing about that issue. The Third Circuit vacated all the Commission’s rule changes (as well as other agency actions in these consolidated cases) and ordered the agency to collect additional statistics on ownership diversity.
What will likely come in this new comment period? More of the same filings from groups such as the NAB.
Larger broadcast companies believe owning more stations is the only way they can compete with big tech companies like Facebook and Google which are going after local ad dollars and remain unregulated. The NAB has even put forward a proposal for The Commission to consider.
Many smaller broadcasters are not in favor of more deregulation.
— RBR+TVBR Washington Bureau, with additional reporting by Radio Ink
