Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 8:17 pm
issues, among other things.
Report on Broadcast Localism and Proposed Rulemaking here:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-218A1.pdf
(It's very long...)
A transcript of a live discussion on the matter here:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-278750A1.pdf
The FCC electronic filing gateway page. The proceeding is "04-233" and goes in the first field. The rest is fairly well laid out.
The NAB has a nice summary page here that highlights the major matters:
http://www.nab.org/xert/Marcomm/Call_to_Action/localism_CTA_2.html
It's time to make your comments people! I hear regular discussion and advocacy for changes. Perhaps we might see some, however small.
I strongly recommend if you do comment, to browse through a few of the filings that exist and use the formatting you will find on the better ones.
Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 9:05 pm
Some highlights from the meeting transcript:
quote:And while I appreciate the arguments on
both sides, the law requires us to serve the public
interests, not the interests of the media giants
that we oversee and the public is not interested in
further media consolidation.
quote:It's no surprise that by a margin of
57 percent to 30 percent the public favors making it
illegal to own a dominant newspaper and a TV station
in the same city. Again, the margins are about the
same for liberals, moderates and conservatives.
The poll also found that the public prefers local
news sources, the very ones threatened by
consolidation. It also found the public is
concerned that consolidation will produce even
more bias into a media world they already consider too biased.
Reassert public interest metrics again? IMHO, this could happen and ownership could remain largely the same. Very interesting topic, for me personally.
quote:I did propose last March that the
Commission make a comprehensive change to the kind
of information that broadcasters have to report in
their process for their renewal. If broadcasters
mean it when they tell us they're already providing
local programming, local news and local information,
then they shouldn't object to telling the Commission
in detail what they're actually doing.
And specifically I propose that
Page 14
FCC Hearing 10.31.07
broadcasters complete and provide every quarter an
enhanced form in which they would describe and
specify the local civic affairs programming, the
local electoral affairs programming, the amount of
public service announcements they're providing,
whether they're for free or whether they've been
paid and independently produce programming that the
station airs that would be meeting the needs of its
local audience.
I think this one is interesting too! We will be getting a lot more out of our spectrum, that's for sure. Perhaps things can be done to put incentives out there aimed at efforts that would fill the local relevance gap?
quote:I have three suggestions for you.
The first one is, please don't do
anything about ownership, and I have two reasons for
saying that. One is we are now going into the
digital transition. You know those two TV stations
I own in Raleigh, they are really eight TV stations
now. You know that FM station I own in Raleigh, I really have three stations now.
I mean we're moving into digital. I'm
not sure what's going to happen to those other
channels, I don't know exactly where this is going
to go, but why would we work on ownership regulation
at the end of an era? You know, why do we make a
change before we really get into this digital and
see what's going on?
Much more where that came from. After sorting through some of this, and some random comments, I am not convinced that the ownership issue, in and of itself, is the problem. Right now, the rules the owners operate under are a problem.
Loss of people, scaling of programming, etc... all cost drivers that are pure business moves. That's not an evil thing, it just is.
If it's more costly to do those things, then business will absolutely make the changes. These points highlighted here clearly point to the idea that maybe we can just make changes that encourage (reward) large owners for doing more of the right things more of the time.
Not all large ownership station cluster members are bad! The ones that are providing a good amount of local daily relevance are a good thing. We just need more of it --at least that's what the overall sampling of public opinion hints at.
Thoughts?
Monday, March 31, 2008 - 8:08 am
Check this NAB press release out:
The NAB has filed a lawsuit to block new FCC requirements that broadcasters complete detailed forms that list all the local civic programming, local electoral affairs programming, public service announcements, and independently produced programming aired during each quarter.
"America's broadcasters have no quarrel with serving the public interest. Indeed, public service is the lifeblood of our business, and the most successful radio and television stations are laser-like in their commitment to community, whether that be in the form of local news, raising millions for charities, or saving childrens' lives with Amber Alerts," said the NAB in a release.
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Heaven forbid stations have to be accountable...that might require the likes of a "Mike Turner" on payroll generating Public Affairs programming...and performing the audit functions all stations were once required to perform.
Has deregulation been great???
