Diversity Report to Congress Revised, Awaiting FCC Vote
An overdue report to Congress on FCC efforts to increase diversity among the industries it regulates and containing recommendations for legislation has effectively recirculated at the commission for a final vote, agency officials said. An updated draft of the report, which mandated to be prepared every three years by Section 257 of the Telecom Act, was sent to commissioners Aug. 11 and doesn’t appear to be controversial, officials said. The revised report doesn’t appear to contain major revisions and sticks with the legislative recommendations of the original draft that first circulated Jan. 8 but was essentially put on hold while career FCC staffers made changes, commission officials said. The report, due to Congress last Jan. 1, drew criticism from some minority advocates for being late (CD Aug 2 p2).
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Perhaps the most significant legislative recommendation in the draft asks Congress to reinstate the tax certificate program and expand it to cover all media and telecom licensees, agency officials said. In 1995, Congress rescinded minority tax certificates to companies that sold radio or TV stations and cable systems to minorities due to concerns the program was abused, and in a later and unrelated case the Supreme Court made it harder for the government to enact set-asides targeting certain groups. The forthcoming FCC recommendation for a new tax certificate program doesn’t get into specifics about how legislators or regulators could set eligibility, agency officials said.
Two other draft recommendations are on subjects with legislation pending: Low-power FM (LPFM) licenses and video description mandates, commission officials said. The portion of the document on video description seeks legislation to reinstate FCC authority to make such rules, after an appeals court yanked that authority in 2002, one official said. That portion may be made moot because both the House and Senate have passed disabilities rights legislation that must be reconciled and includes such a requirement. An FCC spokesman declined to comment on the forthcoming report from the agency’s Office of Communications Business Opportunities.
If commissioners approve, the FCC would back legislation to increase spectrum allotted for LPFM stations, agency officials said. They said the report -- not given a due date for a vote by the office of Chairman Julius Genachowski -- doesn’t spell out how that goal should be met. The House last year approved HR-1147 allowing for third-adjacent separation so LPFM outlets could broadcast at a frequency three notches from the channel occupied by a nearby full-service station and S-592, a similar bill, awaits a full-Senate vote. The Senate bill has been hotlined and approved for a vote by Democrats and is awaiting approval in that manner from Republicans, said Executive Director Pete Radish of LPFM group Prometheus Radio Project. “Ever since 2003 the commissioners have been unanimous in favor of getting the commission’s authority back” for third-adjacent separation and “most of Congress seems to agree,” he said. “We're getting close to a moment of consensus that it’s time to pass the bill."
Some industry and minority advocates agree it’s time to bring back some sort of tax certificate program. The NAB has “long supported the minority tax certificate program,” a spokesman said. It’s “a policy with a proven track-record of increasing diversity within the ranks of broadcast station ownership,” he added.
"We're glad the commission recognizes the profound importance of restoring the tax certificate program,” said Executive Director David Honig of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. “We need to have this program expanded for new technologies, have it be written in a way that’s constitutionally permissive and have it capped” for deal size and the total size of the program, he said. “This is a paradigm that no one has objected to for 14 years.”