Broadcasters Overwhelmingly Want Main Studio Rule to Be Abolished
Broadcast commenters overwhelmingly backed elimination of the main studio rule, in comments filed in docket 17-106 in time for Monday’s deadline. NPR, NAB, Nexstar, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the vast majority of commenters called the rule an outdated and unnecessary cost to broadcasters. “The rule now simply serves as an artificial barrier to broadcasters seeking to allocate their resources in a manner that best serves their listeners and viewers,” said Hubbard Broadcasting. The broadcaster comments largely agree with the tentative conclusions in the NPRM proposing the rule’s elimination -- though there was pushback on whether broadcasters should be required to provide a 24-hour emergency phone number. A telephone staffing requirement "is not necessary or appropriate, and would be unduly burdensome, particularly for smaller stations,” NAB said.
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Virtually every commenter said the main studio rule no longer reflects the modern relationship between broadcasters and consumers. With most communications between consumers and businesses happening online, “elimination of the requirement to physically locate a main studio building and its associated personnel close to the ‘center of town’ or some other arbitrary community of license boundary, will neither sever nor even diminish a station’s local connection to its community,” said Nexstar.
The FCC’s decisions moving public file requirements online recognize that consumers increasingly interact with broadcasters online rather than in person, said NAB and many others. “Members of the public rarely visit stations’ main studios to examine public files and copy documents,” said MMTC. The commission shouldn’t keep stations that haven’t transitioned to all online files from being exempt from the main studio rule, NAB said. Stations that still have physical files can make them available in a local building other than a studio, such as a library, NAB said. Nearly every commenter said the rule would save broadcasters a great deal of money, which could then be redirected to bettering their stations.
New AM licensee Romar Communications was one outlier, saying the FCC’s proposal would hurt localism. “The Commission’s and Chairman [Ajit] Pai’s tentative assessments as to the Rule’s lack of necessity and undue burden appear unsupported by fact and weakly justified only by generalization,” the broadcaster said. “The proposed elimination of the Main Studio Rule stands as just another example of a rampant, obsessive, deregulatory-driven agenda supported frenetically by Congressional leadership in lock step with the new Administration.”
Even without a main studio rule, market forces and the economic requirement to offer local news and local ads will keep broadcasters connected to their local communities, numerous commenters said. “Marketplace conditions require stations to engage regularly with their local communities to deliver content relevant to local audiences and compete effectively with an ever-increasing array of other media outlets,” NAB said.
Most broadcasters said a rule change wouldn’t affect broadcasters' ability to spread word of an upcoming emergency, and a local phone number for listeners to call would suffice. The FCC shouldn’t specifically require such a number, Hubbard said. Stations are already incentivized as businesses to make their phone numbers readily available, and such a requirement isn't burdensome as would be a rule mandating that the number always be staffed, NAB said.