The Federal Communications Commission has announced that Friday, January 27, 2012 will be the deadline to file comments in response to its latest proposal to institute standardized television programming disclosures in lieu of the current quarterly issues/programs lists. Reply comments will be due Thursday, February 9, 2012. Many of our clients participated in a joint effort that successfully opposed the FCC’s earlier effort to impose expansive standardized program reporting obligations for television stations. We are planning to prepare comments opposing the FCC’s revised proposal, which remains overly broad and insufficiently explained. We are again seeking the input and support of broadcasters.
As discussed in our November 18, 2011 Client Alert, the FCC has now abandoned its original proposal, which would have imposed onerous and expansive program reporting requirements in the form of “Standardized Disclosure Form 355.” The Commission now seeks to adopt, in a somewhat modified format, a standardized reporting scheme that will require television broadcasters to file quarterly reports regarding public interest programming aired during an FCC-identified “composite week,” classifying this programming into specific (although vaguely differentiated) categories. The FCC also proposes entirely new disclosure obligations, such as documenting whether the reported programming is the product of a local marketing agreement, local news service, shared services agreement, or other contractual arrangement with a content provider; reporting whether such programming is subject to the FCC’s sponsorship identification rule; and making specific disclosures regarding closed captioning, video description, and emergency accessibility complaints.
We anticipate arguing that, despite the proposed revisions, the FCC’s program reporting scheme remains highly burdensome to broadcasters, with little commensurate benefit to the general public. In addition, the proposal raises serious First Amendment concerns, in that the FCC appears to favor certain types of programming in a manner that could have an impermissible chilling effect on broadcasters’ programming discretion. We plan to stress that the replacement of a system which has been generally accepted by the public at large for more than 30 years should not be undertaken lightly, especially when the introduction of the changes proposed appear to create new, and substantial, staffing expenditures and recordkeeping obligations for each station.
The FCC has been persistently prodded by academics and media critics to impose a standardized reporting obligation to replace, and likely significantly expand upon, the information currently provided through the issues/programs lists. While the current proposal focuses on television broadcasters, the FCC has made clear that it believes that standardized program classification and reporting should eventually be applied to radio as well. Only with detailed input from broadcasters in the rule making process required by law can the FCC be made fully aware of the costly administrative burdens and potential legal perils which are posed by the proposed standardized reporting requirements.
If you would like additional information concerning the FCC’s proposal, or want to participate in a joint filing opposing the FCC’s “enhanced disclosure” proposal, please contact us.
