A cross-ownership study by the Minority Media and...

A cross-ownership study by the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council is “deeply flawed in numerous ways,” public interest group Free Press told FCC staff Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing Thursday (http://bit.ly/13apluT). The MMTC study, submitted as part of the 2010 Quadrennial Review, found the impact of cross-media ownership on minority and women broadcast ownership (CD May 31 p1) to be “negligible.” Free Press attacked the study for not being quantitative or providing the data needed by the commission to consider changes to media ownership rules. “MMTC’s study fails to satisfy the Third Circuit’s mandate in Prometheus II that the Commission collect the data necessary for informed policy-making,” said the Free Press filing. The study doesn’t adequately describe its sample, Free Press said, so the responses from “female Caucasian owners” are combined with responses from “female and male racial and/or ethnic minority owners” and it doesn’t differentiate between radio and TV station ownership. “Thus the number of interview subjects is small, and we have no information about the demographic or market distribution of the respondents,” said Free Press. “This information is critical to assessing the study’s validity.” Free Press said the problems with the study mean it isn’t sufficient to be used as a basis for changes to cross-ownership rules. “While qualitative research can inform policymaking, the results of a single, small (and undefined) sample survey that conflated the impacts of two very different types of cross-ownership are not dispositive,” said Free Press. “In this particular case, the results are not even suggestive, and in no way support the study’s conclusion that ’the impact of cross-media ownership on minority and women broadcast ownership is probably negligible.'” MMTC did not comment.