FCC Releases 2nd NPRM on Media Ownership Rules

FCC RELEASES 2ND NPRM ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission 8/1]
On August 1, the FCC released a 2nd Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in its ongoing review of media ownership rules, asking for comment on a August 2006 motion by a coalition of groups calling for the Commission to withdraw, revise and republish its original NPRM. The coalition asserts that the original notice is deficient because it fails to: 1) identify and describe minority ownership proposals remanded by the court in Prometheus Radio Project, et al. v. FCC; 2) refer to or seek comment on a definition of a socially and economically disadvantaged business ("SDB"); and 3) identify Section 257 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a central legal basis for minority ownership relief. MMTC requests that the Commission restart the ownership proceeding. Comments in this proceeding are due October 1, 2007; reply comments are due October 16, 2007. Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein dissented from the inadequate time given for public comment saying, "Yesterday, the Commission provided the public only 60 days to comment on ten research studies that took dozens of economists and lawyers over eight months to prepare. Today - August 1st, after 11 months of inaction, the majority is providing the same truncated time for public comment on proposals that it neglected to discuss last year, at the beginning of our review of the media ownership rules.... Now a new agenda seems to be brewing here. And whatever's being cooked up, the public is not being given sufficient time to take a close look. Maybe someone's worried that, once again, the public will spit it out."
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-136A1.doc

* Statement by Copps and Adelstein
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-136A2.doc

* FCC Stifles Public Debate on Media Ownership
http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=263