MMTC Urges FCC to Rethink Localism Proposal
Minority Media & Telecommunications Council Asks Federal Communications Commission Not to Reinstate Rule Requiring Broadcasters to Locate Main Studio in City of License
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/19/2008 6:59:00 AM
The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council asked the Federal Communications Commission not to reinstate a rule that required broadcasters to locate their main studio in their city of license.
The FCC proposed the move as a way to increase localism, but the MMTC, joined by the Independent Spanish Broadcasters Association, argued in a filing with the commission that even if the move did advance localism, it would decrease diversity. They call it a case of a rule "aimed at advancing one laudable objective that would, in practice, undermine the agency's pursuit of another, equally laudable objective.”
Why? The groups said it would have a disproportionate impact on minorities, which entered the markets later and were not able to cluster stations sharing the same community of license.
And more broadly, they argued, the move would impose "enormous costs" on broadcasters in general, which it called a "receding tide that sinks all boats."
The FCC proposed a host of possible broadcast localism actions as part of an attempt to wrap up its media-ownership-rule review.
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