Remarks of FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly Before the National Association of Broadcasters' State Leadership Conference

I suspect that a primary interest of many television broadcasters in each of your states is the upcoming broadcast spectrum incentive auction. In addition to its prior advocacy on the topic, the National Association of Broadcasters has appropriately raised a couple of key issues pertaining to the auction’s aftermath. Specifically, deep concerns have been voiced over whether 39 months is sufficient to repack remaining broadcasters and the sufficiency of the overall budget of $1.75 billion. In my opinion, these concerns are unlikely to be considered and addressed until the Commission and Congress can examine the lay of the land post auction...

Just a few weeks ago, the Commission adopted new rules to transition the public inspection files maintained by radio stations, cable operators, and satellite systems to an online format. In order to realize the full potential of this transition we need to make sure broadcasters can actually make a full transition. If the records are online, there should be no more need to make a physical paper file available to anyone who walks into a station. The old system subjected station personnel to a real security vulnerability that had to be tolerated in the name of transparency. But with an online filing system, we can and should fix this problem.