[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 222 (Thursday, November 17, 2011)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 71267-71269]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-29505]
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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
47 CFR Part 73
[MB Docket Nos. 00-168, 00-44; FCC 11-162]
Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure Requirements for Television
Broadcast Licensee Public Interest Obligations; Extension of the Filing
Requirement for Children's Television Programming Report (FCC Form 398)
AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.
ACTION: Final rule.
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SUMMARY: In this document, the Commission adopts an Order on
Reconsideration that vacates Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure
Requirements for Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest
Obligations; Extension of the Filing Requirement For Children's
Television Programming Report (FCC Form 398), MB Docket No. 00-168, 00-
44, FCC 07-205, Report & Order, (``Order''). The Order created a
standardized form for the quarterly reporting of programming aired in
response to issues facing a television station's community and a
requirement that portions of each television station's public
inspection file be placed on the Internet. The Order was never
implemented.
DATES: Effective November 17, 2011.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Holly Saurer, Holly.Saurer@fcc.gov of
the Policy Division, Media Bureau, (202) 418-2120.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Federal
Communications Commission's Order on Reconsideration in MB Docket No.
00-168, 00-44, FCC 11-162, adopted October 27, 2011, and released
October 27, 2011. The full text of this document is available for
public inspection and copying during regular business hours in the FCC
Reference Center, Federal Communications Commission, 445 12th Street
SW., CY-A257, Washington, DC 20554. These documents will also be
available via ECFS (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/). (Documents will be
available electronically in ASCII, Word 97, and/or Adobe Acrobat.) The
complete text may be purchased from the Commission's copy contractor,
445 12th Street SW., Room CY-B402, Washington, DC 20554. To request
this document in accessible formats (computer diskettes, large print,
audio recording, and Braille), send an email to fcc504@fcc.gov or call
the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-
0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY).
Summary of the Final Rule
I. Introduction
1. In this Order on Reconsideration we take steps to modernize the
way television broadcasters inform the public about how they are
serving their communities. We vacate the prior Report and Order,\1\
thereby resolving pending petitions for reconsideration of that order,
re-codify the public file rules in existence prior to adoption of the
Report and Order, and seek comment on the proposals set forth in a
Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
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\1\ In the Matter of Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure
Requirements for Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest
Obligations, Report and Order, 73 FR 13452 (2007) (``Report and
Order''); In the Matter of Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure
Requirements for Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest
Obligations, Erratum, 73 FR 30316 (2007).
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II. Background
2. One of a television broadcaster's fundamental public interest
obligations is to air programming responsive to the needs and interests
of its community of license. Broadcasters are afforded considerable
flexibility in how they meet that obligation, but they must maintain a
public inspection file, which gives the public access to information
about the station's operations and enables members of the public to
engage in an active dialogue with broadcast licensees regarding
broadcast service. Among other things, the public inspection file must
contain an issues/programs list, which describes the ``programs that
have provided the station's most significant treatment of community
issues during the preceding three month period.'' The original Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding grew out of a prior Notice of
Inquiry, which explored the public interest obligations of broadcast
television stations as they transitioned to digital.\2\ In the 2000
NPRM, the
[[Page 71268]]
Commission concluded that ``making information regarding how a
television broadcast station serves the public interest easier to
understand and more accessible will not only promote discussion between
the licensee and its community, but will lessen the need for government
involvement in ensuring that a station is meeting its public interest
obligation.'' The Commission tentatively concluded to require
television stations to use a standardized form to report on how they
serve the public interest. The Commission also tentatively concluded to
require television licensees to make the contents of their public
inspection files, including the standardized form, available on their
stations' Internet Web sites or, alternatively, on the Web site of
their state broadcasters association. In 2007, the Commission adopted a
Report and Order implementing these proposals.
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\2\ Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure Requirements for
Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest Obligations, Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking, 65 FR 62683 (2000) (``NPRM''); In the Matter of
Public Interest Obligations of TV Broadcast Licensees, Notice of
Inquiry, 65 FR 4211 (1999)(``NOI'').
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3. Following the release of the Report and Order, the Commission
received petitions for reconsideration from several industry
petitioners and public interest advocates. The industry petitioners
raised a number of issues regarding the standardized form and the
online posting requirement, generally contending that the requirements
were overly complex and burdensome. Public interest advocates argued
that the political file \3\ should be included in the online public
file requirement rather than exempted as provided in the Report and
Order, and that the standardized form should be designed to facilitate
the downloading and aggregation of data for researchers. In addition,
five parties appealed the Report and Order, and the cases were
consolidated in the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
The DC Circuit granted a petition to hold the proceeding in abeyance
while we review the petitions for reconsideration. Challenging the
rules in a third forum, several parties opposed the information
collection contained in the Report and Order at the Office of
Management and Budget (``OMB'') under the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Because of the multiple petitions for reconsideration, the Commission
has not transmitted the information collection to OMB for its approval,
and therefore the rules adopted in the Report and Order have never gone
into effect.\4\
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\3\ Sections 73.3526(e)(6), 73.3527(e)(5) and 73.1943 of the
Commission's rules require that stations keep as part of the public
inspection files a ``political file.''
\4\ See also 47 CFR 73.3526, effective date nt. 2; 47 CFR
73.3526, effective date note; 47 CFR 73.1201, effective date note 2.
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4. In June 2011, a working group including Commission staff,
scholars and consultants released ``The Information Needs of
Communities'' (``INC Report''), a comprehensive report on the current
state of the media landscape.\5\ The INC Report discussed both the need
to empower citizens to ensure that broadcasters serve their communities
in exchange for the use of public spectrum, and also the need to remove
unnecessary burdens on broadcasters who aim to serve their communities.
The INC Report provided several recommendations relevant to this
proceeding, including eliminating unnecessary paperwork and moving
toward an online system for public disclosures in order to ensure
greater public access. The INC Report also recommended requiring that
when broadcasters allow advertisers to dictate content, they disclose
the ``pay-for-play'' arrangements online as well as on the air in order
to create a permanent, searchable record of these arrangements and
afford easy access by consumers, competitors and watchdog groups to
this information. The Report also suggested that governments at all
levels collect and publish data in forms that make it easy for
citizens, entrepreneurs, software developers, and reporters to access
and analyze information in order to enable mechanisms that can present
the data in more useful formats, and noted that greater transparency by
government and media companies can help reduce the cost of reporting,
empower consumers, and foster innovation.
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\5\ ``The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media
Landscape in a Broadband Age,'' by Steven Waldman and the Working
Group on Information Needs of Communities (June 2011), available at
http://www.fcc.gov/infoneedsreport. As noted in the INC Report, the
views of the report ``do not necessarily represent the views of the
Federal Communications Commission, its Commissioners or any
individual Bureaus or Offices.'' Id. at 362.
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5. In the Order on Reconsideration, we conclude, in light of the
reconsideration petitions we received with respect to the Report and
Order and the comments and replies thereto, that the best course of
action is to vacate the rules adopted in the Report and Order and
develop a new record upon which we can evaluate our public file and
standardized form requirements.
III. Order on Reconsideration
6. We issued the 2007 Report and Order to modernize broadcasters'
traditional public file requirement to improve the public's access to
information on how the stations are serving their local communities. We
remain dedicated to that objective and to bringing broadcast disclosure
into the 21st century. Nonetheless, the reconsideration petitions we
received from broadcasters and public interest advocates and the
responses thereto have persuaded us to reexamine the balance we struck
in 2007 between public access to station information and the burden
providing such access imposes on broadcasters. In particular, the
Report and Order was based upon an NOI and an NPRM that were issued
over a decade ago, and the record upon which those rules were adopted
does not reflect the rapid technological advances that have occurred
over the last ten years. Furthermore, the Report and Order was issued
approximately three and a half years ago, and since then we have seen
even more technological and marketplace changes that may be pertinent
to our consideration of broadcasters' public disclosure obligations. In
light of these considerations, we conclude that the best course of
action is to take a fresh look at the policy issues raised in this
proceeding.
7. We further conclude that we should vacate the Report and Order.
The rules adopted in that order cannot take effect without OMB approval
of the information collection under the Paperwork Reduction Act, and we
see no reason to undertake that process given our decision to take a
fresh look at the issues. Accordingly, vacating the Report and Order
will have no practical effect on any party. Moreover, the record
compiled thus far in this proceeding will continue to be available to
any party going forward, and it will also be incorporated into the new
docket we will create to focus on the standardized form. In these
circumstances, we see no benefit to keeping the Report and Order in
place, and by vacating that decision, we remove any procedural or
regulatory uncertainty that might otherwise arise if we failed to take
action to respond to the reconsideration petitions that have been filed
while moving forward to reevaluate the issues.\6\ Although the
[[Page 71269]]
2007 rules never became effective, they appear in the Code of Federal
Regulations (``CFR''), while the pre-existing public file rules, which
remain in effect, were removed from the CFR. For purposes of
clarification, these pre-existing public file rules are being added
back to the CFR, as reflected in the rules as outlined in the document.
We believe that it is important to re-codify the existing rules, so
that the CFR reflects the rules in existence at this time, and so that
the public and stations can clearly find the public file and station
identification requirements.
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\6\ The Commission has inherent authority to revisit its policy
determinations at any time, and when it does so, it ``need not
demonstrate to a court's satisfaction that the reasons for the new
policy are better than the reasons for the old one; it suffices that
the new policy is permissible under the statute, that there are good
reasons for it, and that the agency believes it to be better, which
the conscious change of course adequately indicates.'' FCC v. Fox
Television Stations, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 1800, 1811 (2009). For these
reasons, we do not believe that the Report and Order in any way
binds or constrains our ability to reexamine our policies based upon
an updated record. In the same vein, our decision to vacate the
Report and Order should not be interpreted as an affirmative
rejection of the rules or policies contained therein. Thus, our
decision to take a fresh look does not preclude us from deciding
that certain aspects of the Report and Order were correctly decided
and should be re-adopted.
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8. For the foregoing reasons, we grant the petitions for
reconsideration that were filed, to the extent our vacatur of the
Report and Order grants the relief requested by the petitions. In all
other respects, the reconsideration petitions are dismissed as moot.
IV. Procedural Matters
9. The Commission will send a copy of this Order on Reconsideration
to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to the
Congressional Review Act, see 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A).
V. Ordering Clauses
10. Accordingly, It Is Ordered that pursuant to the Sections 4(i),
303 and 405 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 154(i), 303, and 405,
the Report and Order released on January 24, 2008 in the above
captioned proceeding is Vacated on our own motion, and 47 CFR
73.1201(b), 3526(b) and (e)(11) and 3527(b) and (e)(8) will be re-
codified consistent with the rules outlined in this document.
11. It Is Further Ordered that pursuant to Sections 4(i), and 405
of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 154(i) and
405, and Section 1.106 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.106, the
Petitions for Reconsideration filed by the petitioners listed in
Appendix A Are Hereby Granted In Part and Are Otherwise Dismissed As
Moot.
List of Subjects in 47 CFR Part 73
Television.
Federal Communications Commission.
Marlene H. Dortch,
Secretary.
Final Rules
For the reasons discussed in the preamble, the Federal
Communications Commission amends 47 CFR part 73 as follows:
PART 73--RADIO BROADCAST SERVICES
0
1. The authority citation for part 73 continues to read:
Authority: 47 U.S.C. 154, 303, 334, 336, and 339.
Sec. 73.1201 [Amended]
0
2. Section 73.1201 is amended by removing paragraph (b)(3).
0
3. Section 73.3526 is amended by removing paragraphs (b)(1) and (b)(2)
and (e)(9)(iii); and revising paragraphs (b) introductory text and
(e)(11)(i) to read as follows:
Sec. 73.3526 Local public inspection file of commercial stations.
* * * * *
(b) Location of the file. The public inspection file shall be
maintained at the main studio of the station. An applicant for a new
station or change of community shall maintain its file at an accessible
place in the proposed community of license or at its proposed main
studio.
* * * * *
(e)(11)(i) TV issues/programs lists. For commercial TV and Class A
broadcast stations, every three months a list of programs that have
provided the station's most significant treatment of community issues
during the preceding three month period. The list for each calendar
quarter is to be filed by the tenth day of the succeeding calendar
quarter (e.g., January 10 for the quarter October--December, April 10
for the quarter January--March, etc.) The list shall include a brief
narrative describing what issues were given significant treatment and
the programming that provided this treatment. The description of the
programs shall include, but shall not be limited to, the time, date,
duration, and title of each program in which the issue was treated. The
lists described in this paragraph shall be retained in the public
inspection file until final action has been taken on the station's next
license renewal application.
* * * * *
0
4. Section 73.3527 is amended by removing paragraphs (b)(1), (b)(2),
(e)(8)(i) and (e)(8)(ii); and revising paragraphs (b) introductory text
and (e)(8) introductory text to read as follows:
Sec. 73.3527 Local public inspection file of noncommercial
educational stations.
* * * * *
(b) Location of the file. The public inspection file shall be
maintained at the main studio of the station. An applicant for a new
station or change of community shall maintain its file at an accessible
place in the proposed community of license or at its proposed main
studio.
* * * * *
(e)(8) Issues/Programs Lists. For nonexempt noncommercial
educational broadcast stations, every three months a list of programs
that have provided the station's most significant treatment of
community issues during the preceding three month period. The list for
each calendar quarter is to be filed by the tenth day of the succeeding
calendar quarter (e.g., January 10 for the quarter October-December,
April 10 for the quarter January-March, etc.). The list shall include a
brief narrative describing what issues were given significant treatment
and the programming that provided this treatment. The description of
the programs shall include, but shall not be limited to, the time,
date, duration, and title of each program in which the issue was
treated. The lists described in this paragraph shall be retained in the
public inspection file until final action has been taken on the
station's next license renewal application.
* * * * *
[FR Doc. 2011-29505 Filed 11-16-11; 8:45 am]
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