FCC didn’t meet regulatory flexibility requirements with rulemaki...

Commission “did not describe a vast majority of the compliance requirements… and their impact on small firms. Nor did it discuss significant alternatives.” FCC should submit supplemental Regulatory Flexibility Analysis required by Regulatory Flexibility Act, SBA said. Although FCC listed rulemaking proposals, SBA said it didn’t provide adequate information about costs and alternatives of such proposals as requiring broadcasters to devote 3% of their air time to children’s programming. It said that proposal would require broadcasters to add programming whenever they added channels, and FCC didn’t provide information about cost of additional programming. SBA raised same questions about other proposals, including technical format rules, menu approach, daily core programming obligation, datacasting, providing content information to publishers and others, preemption rescheduling, commercial tie- in limits. FCC should consider alternatives such as delaying enforcement of rules because of cost to small broadcasters of DTV transition itself, SBA said, as well as setting reduced requirements for small broadcasters that have access to fewer resources. Meanwhile, in comments on rulemaking, state broadcast associations said it was too early to impose “burdensome” children’s TV rules on DTV because they “would hamper innovative uses of the digital spectrum.” State groups also said FCC didn’t have legal right to impose quantitative requirements for programming, and rules would raise First Amendment concerns. Center for Media Education immediately rejected constitutionality argument. “The public owns the airwaves, not the broadcasters,” CME Pres. Kathryn Montgomery said.