Withdraw Media Ownership Rulemaking, MMTC Demands

The FCC rulemaking on media ownership is fatally flawed because it fails to address minority ownership rules as the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, told it to in a footnote to the court’s remand of a previous rulemaking on the issue, said Minority Media & Telecom Council Exec. Director David Honig in a motion to withdraw the FNPRM. Rather than proceed, the FCC should restart the proceeding, as the court specifically ordered, work 14 minority ownership proposals MMTC made in 2002 into a new rulemaking, he said. Otherwise, the Commission is defying the court order and setting itself up for another remand, Honig said: “As a matter of law that appears unavoidable.”

“No one wants a second remand,” Honig said, writing on behalf of the Diversity & Competition Supporters, a group of 12 minority entities that includes the National Urban League and Center for Asian American Media. In Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, the court told the Commission to “consider MMTC’s proposals for enhancing ownership opportunities for women and minorities, which the Commission had deferred for future consideration,” Honig said, quoting the decision. The FCC refers to those proposals only in a footnote its FNPRM, Honig said.

“This commission, under its current chairman, has totally devalued and ignored the diversity committee,” Benton Foundation Pres. Gloria Tristani said: “They didn’t even pay lip service to the court with the way they treated this.” The FCC could face another legal challenge if it doesn’t start over as MMTC wants, she said: “I hope the FCC will give it [the motion] a good read, do the right thing, and perhaps save itself from having to defend itself in court again.”

The 3rd Circuit singled out MMTC’s minority ownership proposals in unprecedented fashion, a broadcast attorney said. “That was very interventionist from a court,” the attorney said, characterizing agency handling of the MMTC proposals as “bureaucratic pushback.”

Critics of Commission attempts to lower broadcast ownership curbs should realize industry needs regulatory relief to compete with cable and new media, Tribune Vp-Govt. Relations Shaun Sheehan said: “The empirical evidence is overwhelming: broadcasting continues to lose share both in radio and TV. If the MMTC wants to see audiences continue to migrate to pay services, away from TV, then they should keep up their tired rhetoric.”