Draft Media Ownership NOI Doesn’t Show FCC’s Hand

A draft FCC media ownership inquiry asks questions on a wide array of areas including the touchstones of localism, diversity and competition without preliminary conclusions or recommendations, agency officials said. The notice of inquiry asks how to define various terms related to ownership in the congressionally-mandated 2010 review, they said. In so doing, it gives no sense of whether the commission ultimately will move toward tighter or looser rules, agency officials noted.

The notice circulated last Friday is likely to be voted on outside a commission meeting unless there’s no action by the May 20 gathering, agency officials predicted. Once released, comments would be due in 30 days and replies 15 days later, as typical for NOIs, a commission official said. The NOI in part asks questions raised in an October Media Bureau public notice at http://xrl.us/bhg92u that began the commission’s look at ownership rules. That earlier document asked several dozen questions (CD Oct 22 p9). A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.

The National Broadband Plan is the subject of a short section of the document asking how it affects the quadrennial review, commission officials said. The draft NOI doesn’t ask about how broadcasters’ public interest obligations might be affected should they participate in the spectrum auction envisioned in the plan, they said. It’s unclear why the inquiry, subject of bureau staff work for at least several months, wasn’t ready earlier since it doesn’t include greater detail about the broadband plan submitted to Congress last month, they said. Some in industry, at the commission and at public interest groups doubt the regulator can complete its work by year’s end, which had been a goal of Chairman Julius Genachowski (CD April 2 p1).

Seemingly “everybody outside the commission agrees” it will be hard to finish the review this year, said Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project. “I don’t mind looking at the big picture and reserving judgment, but I don’t think a notice of inquiry is necessary” to do that, he said. President John Sturm of the Newspaper Association of America, which has sought an end to restrictions on common ownership of a daily newspaper and radio or TV station in the same market, declined to comment on the NOI. NAB spokesmen didn’t reply right away to a message.

The draft notice asks whether so-called bright line tests should be applied to any current ownership rule, case-by-case decisions or a mix of both, an FCC official said. It notes the potential for conflict in the current market for achieving the goals of competition, diversity and localism and asks about defining such terms, the person said. Comment would be sought on which of the various ways the commission has measured diversity -- gender, race, programming source included -- should be addressed in the current review, the person said. Feedback also would be sought on how structural regulation of ownership furthers localism and not for suggestions that would dictate broadcaster behavior.