FCC Chairman Wheeler -- What Data-Driven Decisions Are Important?

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission appears adrift from its traditional moorings of fact-based, data-driven decision-making. In the FCC’s newly adopted "leap-without-looking" approach, it rammed through new rules that place limits on the joint advertising sales of local TV broadcasters without seeking any current data on the media and entertainment market, or the rapidly changing advertising marketplace to support the need for the new requirements. The FCC instead relied on an outdated joint sales rule designed for FM radio stations in the days before XM-Sirius and the iPod and applied it to local TV broadcasters.

[Kenny is director of Public Affairs for TVfreedom.org, advocating for preserving the retransmission consent regime.]