Broadcasters: We Don't Need Government to Tell Us How to Serve Our Public

The Federal Communications Commission began its first workshop on the future of media and serving the information needs of the community March 4 with a series of panelists outlining what they said was essentially a lack of any quantifiable public interest obligations on broadcasters.

Broadcasters countered that serving the public with programming they needed and wanted was part of their DNA, or in the case of news, RTDNA, and that there was no need for the government to mandate more specific public interest requirements.

National Association of Broadcasters General Counsel Jane Mago, during her time on the panel, said that NAB and its members believe they do have an obligation to serve the public interest. She said that while the specifics of that obligation have changed, the core obligation is to provide programming, and not only news, which serves its public. There is no one-size-fits-all solution or standard, she said, nor should there be specific quantitative standards. She said stations need to be free to adapt to their audience, rather than forced into "homogeneous" programming. Broadcasters need the flexibility to find the programming that audiences want and advertisers want to pay for, she said. The FCC must recognize that its ownership structure must allow them to compete. Mago touted broadcasting as a highly efficient, free, universal, point-to-multipoint system (that last has become a drumbeat of broadcasters arguing that they are a more efficient video delivery system than mobile wireless). "And we don't create network congestion," she added, taking a shot at the broadband-centricity of the current media conversation.