The FCC should accept comments for 30 days on minority media ownership, Minority...

The FCC should accept comments for 30 days on minority media ownership, Minority Media and Telecommunications Council President David Honig said Thursday night. He suggested a 20-day “lightning round of comments,” with 10 more days for replies. MMTC has backed allowing cross ownership of daily newspapers and TV stations within a market, as an FCC draft order would allow waivers for, and unlike other public-interest groups (CD Nov 30 p22) that continue lobbying the agency on the draft rules. The commission should “improve the record on the relationship between structural rules and minority ownership, on the definition of an eligible entity, on the many specific pending proposals aimed at advancing minority ownership, and on the research needed to ensure that decisions made in this area are well supported and wise,” Honig said in an email. Other nonprofits that oppose media consolidation and have said the commission is rushing to approve deregulation (CD Nov 29 p5) contend not examining the impact of the rules on “racial and gender diversity of station owners” would violate the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ requirements for new rules. It’s “arbitrary and capricious” if the final order “failed to provide for meaningful public notice when applicants sought waivers and failed to prevent stations from circumventing the local television limit by means of shared services agreements,” representatives of about 10 groups told Commissioner Ajit Pai, according to a filing Thursday in docket 09-182 from Common Cause, Communications Workers of America, Free Press, National Organization for Women and others (http://xrl.us/bn38zh).