Community Broadcasters Association: Protect Our Diversity

The Community Broadcasters Association, which represents low-power TV stations, has been making its case to Washington for some help in getting carriage for stations it said provided the kind of programming and ownership diversity -- opportunities for women, small businesses, and minorities -- that the Federal Communications Commission is looking to promote. That comes against a backdrop of the high-profile dust-up between African American targeted progammer TV One and would-be programmer Urban TV/Ion Media over the latter's request that the FCC give the Ion TV station multicast channels that would program Urban TV mandatory cable carriage as a way to promote diversity. It is also in the wake of FCC Chairman Michael Copps' announcement that he was already preparing the legal and factual underpinnings for the FCC's promotion of diversity.