Multicultural Media, Telecom and Interent Council Pushes FCC on Pared List of Diversity Imperatives

As Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler prepares to circulate the FCC's long overdue quadrennial media ownership rule regulatory review the week of June 27, the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) has pared back two-dozen longstanding diversity proposals to five and asked that the FCC take action on them. Those making the list were:

1) Promoting minority ownership as an "integral part" of all FCC rulemaking proceedings. "Due to the very small size of the civil rights and public interest FCC bar, these issues are often not raised in the proceedings at all."
2) "Extend the Cable Procurement Rule to Broadcasting. Congress in the 1992 Cable Act requires cable operators to encourage participation by minorities and women in all parts of their organizations," calling it "one of the FCC’s long-term civil rights success stories."
3) Adopt "tipping point" and "source diversity" formulas for ensuring diversity in local radio markets. The "tipping point" formula "acknowledges the existence of a tipping point in the distribution of radio revenue in a market between cluster owners and independents. When the combined revenues of a market’s cluster owners exceed this tipping point, the independents can no longer survive," which would help the FCC determine when a transaction would hurt diversity. The Source Diversity formula "expresses the consumer benefit derived from marginal increases in source diversity."
4) Create a model for market-based, tradeable diversity credits, likened to the trading carbon credits to reduce pollution, in this case a way to boost diversity and decrease concentration. "If a transaction would increase concentration, the buyer would be expected to return some of its Diversity Credits to the Commission at the close of the transaction. Companies could also buy or sell these credits to one another, thus providing a market-based source of access to capital for SDBs."
5) Create a new civil rights branch of the FCC Enforcement Bureau, which it said would promote "consistency, efficiency and effectiveness."