MMTC Offers 5 Diversity Proposals

The Multicultural Media, Internet and Telecom Council narrowed its list of proposed media ownership diversity initiatives to five that should be included in the order FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler committed to circulating June 30 (see 1606240076), in a letter filed Friday in docket 14-50. The five proposals include creating a civil rights division within the Enforcement Bureau, extending cable rules governing procurement from minority-owned businesses to broadcasting, and examining minority ownership effects from all FCC general rulemakings. Other proposals are formulas for calculating diversity, and a proposal to replace the eight-voices test with “Market-Based Tradable Diversity Credits.” A market-based system “would be analogous to the operation of carbon trading as a market-based means of reducing pollution,” MMTC said. It set aside 19 other diversity docket proposals as being impractical or no longer applicable, though some could be refiled later.