FCC Report Shows Little Net Improvement in Ownership Diversity

Minorities and women are still underrepresented in broadcast radio and television station ownership ranks and have not made much headway in full-power TV station ownership in the past couple of years, according to the Federal Communications Commission’s latest Form 323 diversity of ownership report, which is comparing FCC biennial data collections from broadcasters for 2009 and 2011.

In 2011, women had an attributable interest in 91 full-power TV stations, or 6.8%, of the 1,348 total full-power TV stations. That is up from 5.6% of those stations in 2009. Women make up 50.8% of the population, according to the 2010 Census. Men owned 873 full-power TV stations (64.8%) in 2011, vs. 60.4% in 2009. While it may seem counterintuitive that both numbers could go up, that is because the other 28% or so of stations have no single owner whose stake triggers attributable ownership.