FCC Extends Quadrennial Review Comment Period, Issues Broadcast Ownership Report

Commenters on the FCC 2014 quadrennial review (QR) of media ownership rules will be able to use demographic data as a basis for their comments, due to simultaneous release of the commission’s 2014 report on ownership of commercial broadcast stations (http://bit.ly/1mnqjYm) and a one-month extension of QR deadlines (http://bit.ly/1sL3hUN), several public interest group officials said in interviews Friday. Although the statistics, garnered from station Form 323 submissions, are less extensive than public interest groups would like, it will still inform comments on the QR rulemaking, said Andrew Schwartzman, senior counselor at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation.

Comments on the QR now are due Aug. 6, replies Sept. 8, said the Media Bureau in a public notice. The extension was motivated by a request from a coalition of broadcasters that includes LIN Media and Raycom, along with the timing of the Form 323 report, the notice said. “The issues in the 2014 Quadrennial Review FNPRM are significant and important to a wide range of interested parties, and we seek to encourage robust participation in the proceeding.”

The data in the report show few significant changes in minority or female ownership from the previous report in 2012, several public interest groups told us. That’s a sign that progress in diversifying media ownership is “pretty stagnant,” National Hispanic Media Coalition General Counsel Jessica Gonzalez told us. The report shows ownership by women and African-Americans declining and no improvement in Hispanic ownership, she said. The report “provides yet another reminder of the urgency of aggressive FCC policies that would facilitate minority broadcast ownership,” said Minority Media and Telecommunications Council President David Honig.

The report compares current data (as of October 2013) with data from the 2011 biannual ownership report. According to the 2014 report, women owned 87 full-power TV stations in 2013 compared to 91 in 2011. African-Americans owned 9 stations, or 0.6 percent of the total, in 2013, compared to 11, or 0.8 percent, in 2011. However, ownership by racial minorities as a whole improved: They owned 41 full-power TV stations in 2013, 3 percent of the total, and 31 stations, 2.3 percent, in 2011, the report said.

Though the data collection is important to public interest groups working to improve ownership diversity and industry interests working to loosen ownership rules, it’s unlikely to be used by itself as the basis of a rulemaking, said Honig, Schwartzman and Free Press Policy Counsel Lauren Wilson. “This is a head count, not a study,” Wilson said. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Prometheus ruling on FCC media ownership rules required the commission to extensively study the impacts of relaxing media ownership rules on diversity, and Schwartzman and Wilson said it was unlikely that the 2014 report could be used to fulfill that requirement.

NAB, which has advocated for relaxation of broadcast ownership rules, said it’s still digesting the information in the report. “NAB believes in having diverse ownership opportunities in broadcasting and a work force that is reflective of American society,” a spokesman said in an email. The association supports reinstatement of a minority tax certificate program to create more ownership opportunities for minorities, the spokesman said.

The report is part of an FCC effort to “collect and publicly release information concerning minority and female ownership of broadcast stations,” said the notice. It said the report and its future incarnations will “provide useful periodic snapshots of minority and female ownership in the broadcast industry.” The FCC did not comment.