The agenda for the FCC’s December 12 open meeting is to be released today. As has become customary, the Chairman yesterday blogged about the issues to be considered at the meeting. For broadcasters, there are two matters of interest. The first will be the initiation of the next Quadrennial Review of the FCC’s ownership rules. This will begin with a notice of proposed rulemaking teeing up the areas that the FCC will be considering in this review – including radio ownership issues and likely further clarification of the FCC’s standards for waivers allowing the combination of two of the Top 4 TV stations in any market. The draft order should be released later today, just in time for Thanksgiving reading. We will post a link here when it is available (Update, 2:30 PM EDT, the draft NPRM is available here) – and will summarize some of the highlights next week.
Also on the agenda is the Order resolving the FCC’s proposal to eliminate the requirement that broadcasters post their station authorizations at the control points of their stations. We wrote about that proposal here. When the FCC posts the draft order later today, we will provide a link (Update, the link to the draft order is here). Watch for consideration of these issues at the December meeting.