FCC’s Pai: Time To Let Noncoms Raise Funds For Third Party Charities

Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai says it is time for the FCC to give noncommercial stations the ability to use some of their airtime to raise money for third parties.

Currently, noncoms can raise funds for themselves, but not others, though the commission under former chairman Julius Genachowski last year that proposed loosening those restrictions by allowing stations to use up to one percent of their airtime for third-party nonprofit fund-raising. The FCC has issued a number of waivers of the limitation for disaster relief efforts. Pai said the FCC should approve the proposal. The commission voted unanimously to make the change in an April 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking but has yet to vote out an order. No one was available at the shuttered FCC to comment on that delay.