In Today’s New York Times, a columnist concludes that the FCC’s multiple ownership proceeding is "yesterday’s news."  Looking at the Tribune Company’s recent financial issues and possible sale, the column asks whether anyone should really care about ownership issues in the light of the rapid changes in the media landscape brought about by the digital revolution.  Whether or not anyone cares, the changes in media competition, and potentially in the political landscape after next week’s election, may well mean that there will be no significant ownership reform for quite some time, perhaps not until 2009 – after the next Presidential election.

The Times column talks about Tribune’s discussions of selling off its television stations as part of a financial restructuring.  (The article does not mention that the New York Times itself is considering the sale of its television stations).  Tribune has certainly been one of the parties pushing newspaper-television cross-ownership relief.  As they look at restructuring, will they pay attention to the FCC’s proceedings?  And Clear Channel was one of the parties in the forefront of attempts to further loosen radio ownership restrictions.  They, too, are reportedly considering a financial restructuring or sale.  Will these actions distract two of the most active proponents of relaxing the ownership rules?

In the comments in this proceeding filed last week, ABC Disney essentially took itself out of the proceeding saying that they did not advocate changes in the ownership rules, as they are selling their primary radio assets, are out of newspapers, and are investing in new technologies to get their message out.  With the opportunities of the Internet distribution of video and audio programming, are there other broadcasters, anxious to own more traditional media, who will take the lead in this proceeding?  With over-the-air digital radio and digital television both offering multicast opportunities, do these technologies themselves take some of the urgency out of ownership relief? 

Continue Reading Multiple Ownership – Still Relevant?

Entering the last full week before the mid-term elections, broadcasters need to beware of the political broadcasting issues that can arise in the tail end of the campaign season.  With the media expecting political ads to get even dirtier in these final days (see, for instance, the Washington Post’s article yesterday – The Year of Playing Dirtier), potential liability looms for broadcasters if they run unfounded third-party attack ads (see our October 18 posting on Dealing With Issue Ads).  But there are other issues of concern.

In this hot political season, in states with closely contested races, equal opportunities requirements can cause advertising inventory concerns during these last days.  When writing new orders for candidate advertising time in these last days, be sure to factor in buys by political opponents who will be entitled to demand equal opportunities – to be provided before the election.  Remember that reasonable access does not demand unlimited access, only what is reasonable under the circumstances.  In determining what is reasonable, a station can look at inventory concerns, as well as the potential for equal opportunities demands from other candidates.  So remember to save room for those equal opportunities requests.

Continue Reading Last Minute Political Issues for the Campaign’s Closing Days

According to the agenda for its meeting to be held on Friday, November 3, the FCC will finally adopt changes to its rules on FM allotment procedures and on changes in the city of license of broadcast stations.  The FCC issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding in June 2005.  This proceeding includes a proposal to make a city of license change a "minor change," which would not require a rulemaking for FM stations, and would not require a window filing for AM stations.  This could speed the processing of such changes, allowing stations to upgrade and otherwise improve their facilities.

The proceeding also deals with a number of other procedural issues, including whether a station should be allowed to change its city of license if it is the only station licensed to a community (generally prohibited under current rules), and whether the proponent of a new FM allotment should be required to file its Form 301 application for a construction permit (and pay the required filing fee) at the same time as it files a Petition seeking the new allotment (intended to encourage only serious applicants for new channels).

Continue Reading FCC to Consider FM Allotment Changes

As we predicted in our entry of October 14, the FCC yesterday ruled that the Tonight Show appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is running for reelection as Governor of California, was a bona fide news interview program exempt from equal time obligations.  As our October 14 posting set out in detail, previous decisions of the FCC had established that many programs that most people would consider to be entertainment qualified as bona fide news interview programs exempt from equal opportunities.  As cited in yesterday’s FCC decision, past cases where this ruling has been made include programs such as Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael, Jerry Springer, Politically Incorrect, Howard Stern and Entertainment Tonight.  As long as the program regularly discusses political or other topical issues, the program content and topics are not controlled by the candidate, and the programming is not presented in a blatantly partisan fashion, a program will be exempt from equal opportunities. 

This decision should give comfort to broadcasters who may have been shy about letting candidates on their talk shows for fear of equal opportunities claims.  If the program discusses topical issues from time to time, it can be considered an exempt program even if the bulk of its content deals with entertainment or other issues.  The FCC is encouraging political speech – in whatever form it may take.