Special Report Shows Effects of Partisanship, Declining Staff, Recent Flat Budgets

This Communications Daily Special Report "a Portrait of the FCC in a Partisan Era" shows the impact of recently flat FCC budgets and a long-shrinking overall staff, as well as partisanship, on agency operations and more. Subscribers also can now access these six stories online at www.communicationsdaily.com.

Howard Buskirk reports (see 1512150014) that radio stations are being threatened by pirate radio stations, which some say are now largely unchecked by the Enforcement Bureau. The bureau had to close offices and scale back operations due to recent budget cuts. One whistleblower even said the bureau is allegedly ignoring any interference these rogue broadcasters are causing to licensed operations.

FCC funding itself has become what one appropriator called "a real political football," reports John Hendel (see 1512150011). Funding has been frozen in recent years despite agency requests for more, as the 1,708 full-time equivalent employees as of its most-recent budget request was a decline from numbers of 2,000 and more two decades ago. But, contrary perhaps to common wisdom, the agency's budget of $340 million is many millions more than what it was when there were more employees. But the budget has been flat for some years.

Amid increased partisanship on Capitol Hill, FCC members themselves also are divided more often than in the past, reports Monty Tayloe (see 1512150030). He found that in 2014, the Tom Wheeler-led commission approved items at FCC open meetings with a party-line vote 11 times, compared with two such votes under Kevin Martin in 2008 and just one under Julius Genachowski in 2012. The trend is on track to continue this year.

Increased partisanship at the commission and among its congressional overseers is thought to be why the agency holds more events for news media that aren't on the record than those that are, reports Jonathan Make (see 1511200019). The FCC exceeds all other communications-related agencies in holding such anonymous news briefings, which experts say hurts government accountability.

Not all FCC trends are alarming to stakeholders. David Kaut reports (see 1512150021) that, even amid overall agency cutbacks, industry officials said the Wireline Bureau is doing a good job in addressing some big-ticket items and backlogs. But backlogs on some issues persist, the agency's own figures show.

And at the Media Bureau, Buskirk, Kaut and Matt Daneman report (see 1512150040), much progress was made cutting the backlog. Overall at the commission, they write, the total backlog fell 37 percent May 1-Dec. 31, 2014. More-recent figures weren't available.

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