Public Interest Groups, Newspaper Publisher Oppose FCC Relaxation of Notice Rules
A bevy of public interest groups and a newspaper publisher oppose an FCC proposal to relax public notice rules, but broadcasters and the Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council support the FCC stance, according to comments filed in docket 17-264 for Monday’s comment deadline on an FCC NPRM. A second deregulatory move proposed in the NPRM -- to exempt broadcasters that don’t offer ancillary services from filing ancillary services earnings reports -- was less controversial, drawing support only from broadcasters and no attention at all from public interest groups.
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“Public notice is essential for members of the public to participate in the broadcast licensing process,” said joint comments from the United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Free Press, the Benton Foundation, Common Cause, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. “An Internet notice is an inadequate substitute for a printed, fixed newspaper notice,” said Pennsylvania newspaper publisher LNP Media Group.
The FCC should “at the very least” allow broadcasters to notify the public of applications through online posts, said Meredith, Raycom and Graham Media in a joint filing. The FCC should relax all the notice requirements affecting broadcasters, the companies said, and indicated support for outright elimination of notice rules. Cable and satellite don’t face comparable notice rules, the broadcasters said. “The modern media consumer most likely does not read a local newspaper,” the broadcasters said. Notice can be achieved through links to the FCC website, the broadcasters said. Since a broadcast application can have a lot of attributable parties, providing notice on-air can be difficult, the broadcasters said. “The fee to publish seldom-read legal notices in newspapers is a fixed cost imposed on broadcasting companies, regardless of the size of the company,” said MMTC. “The elimination of the Publication Rule will improve the net revenues of all stations.” NAB and Nexstar also filed in support of relaxing notice requirements (see 1712290035).
The FCC’s assumption that the ubiquity of the internet means the public expects to see legal notices on government websites is “flawed” said LNP Media. “Traffic to government websites is a small fraction of the traffic to newspaper websites in the same communities,” LNP said. Allowing broadcasters to provide such notice only online would leave the notice process more vulnerable to cybercrime, LNP said. Newspaper publication also provides a way to reliably archive broadcaster notices, since libraries already preserve newspapers. Online-only notices may not be preserved, LNP said. “Even if a public notice could be posted online without risk of hacking, tampering or technical difficulty, the notice still must be archived in a secure and publicly available format.”
“Meaningful public notice is essential for the public to exercise its rights under the Communications Act,” said the joint filing from the public interest groups. The public can’t inform the FCC that proposed deals affect their interests if they don’t know about the deals, the groups said. “Thus, any attempt by the Commission to repeal public notice requirements would violate the Communications Act,” the joint filing said. The FCC touted the importance of public comments in past proceedings on deregulating radio and online public files, the groups said.
“Online notice alone is insufficient to allow full public participation in licensing matters,” the public interest groups said. “Not everyone has access to the Internet.” Without on-air notices to supplement online ones, the public won’t know a broadcast transaction or license renewal is pending, the joint filing said. It is “not reasonable” to expect the public to know when a local station seeks renewal, and the public shouldn’t have to sign up for online notifications to get legal notice, the public interest groups said. “This would require constant monitoring of large amounts of information, most of which would not be relevant,” the joint filing said.
Allowing broadcasters that didn’t receive income from ancillary services to skip filing forms reporting such income will save broadcasters time and money, all the broadcasters commenting in the proceeding said. It already has, since the Media Bureau waived the requirement for applicable broadcasters in a public notice in December (see 1711160027), Meredith, Graham and Raycom said. “There is no harm to the public and a benefit of less strain on the Commission’s systems,” the joint broadcaster filing said.