A broadcast attorney questioned why a recent FCC Media Bureau...

the record right before the holiday weekend, the Submission itself is an unusual document,” Scott Flick, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop, wrote on the firm’s blog (http://xrl.us/bm3fdt). “It is not on letterhead, it is not dated and it is not signed. If it were not for the fact that the FCC’s filing system indicates that it was submitted by the Media Bureau, you might well wonder where it came from.” In short, it resembles the type of one-page submissions most docket-watchers don’t see when taking advantage of the FCC’s “brief comments excluded” option for searching its comment database, he said. “Those using the search filter would not see it,” he said. But he was wrong. The bureau’s submission appeared Friday on an RSS feed of all comments filed with the FCC’s electronic comments filing system that excludes such brief comments. The bureau’s filing disclosed that it requested copies of the public inspection files at each broadcast station in the Baltimore designated market area and that it counted the number of pages in each. Still, the timing of the vote on the order bodes poorly as well, Flick said. “It is a long-standing FCC tradition to schedule votes on orders that are favorable to broadcasters so they can be released just before the NAB Show, ensuring that FCC commissioners speaking at the NAB Show will receive a warm reception,” he said. “Conversely, FCC orders that broadcasters are not going to be happy about tend to be delayed until after the NAB Show concludes,” he said. The item is set for a vote at the FCC’s April 27 meeting, about a week after the NAB show concludes.