September 2006

On August 18, we reported on meetings held between Senator Brownback of Kansas and representatives of the advertising community dealing with the subject of the advertising of "unhealthy foods."  It looks like those meetings have led to action as, according to a Hollywood Reporter story today, the FCC will be forming an obesity task force…

At a continuing legal education seminar held by the Federal Communications Bar Association a week ago, Bobby Baker, the FCC’s chief of the Office of Political Programming, confirmed an issue that has been confounding broadcasters for many months. In recent years, several organizations, including Google’s dMarc service, have begun to take remnant advertising inventory from broadcasters…

As we reported on July 7 and 17, the FCC had intended to issue final rules on Ibiquity digital radio standard in July, but suddenly pulled the item off their agenda.  Currently, all broadcast stations operating in a digital mode are doing so on temporary authorizations pursuant to interim rules, and multicast operations are conducted pursuant…

With only a week to go before comments are due in the FCC proceeding to determine whether or not to change the Multiple Ownership Rules (our summary of the issues on which the Commission sought comment can be found here), a controversy has arisen over a 2004 study concerning the effects of local ownership on news programming.  During the confirmation hearing on Chairman Martin’s second term on the Commission, soon after the Chairman expressed his open mind about the outcome of the multiple ownership proceeding, California Senator Barbara Boxer produced a surprise.  She produced a report written by FCC economists purporting to show that television stations that are locally owned air more local news programming.  This report, though written in 2004, had never been released to the public.

The clear implication was that the Commission had tried to bury the report though as it contradicted FCC proposals to loosen ownership restrictions.  According to a report in TV Newsday,  the Chairman today sent a letter to Senator Boxer stating that neither he nor any of the other Commissioners knew of the existence of the report or any efforts to suppress its release.  However, in another news report released today, a former FCC attorney said that senior managers at the Commission ordered "every last piece" of the report destroyed.  Continue Reading Flurry Over Consolidation Study