Media Ownership Rules Are 'Race Neutral' Way of Encouraging New Entrants, NHMC Says

The FCC should retain or tighten media ownership rules as a “race neutral” way of creating opportunity for new entrants, said the National Hispanic Media Coalition in a Wednesday meeting with Media Bureau staff, said an NHMC ex parte filing posted in docket 14-50 Friday. “The Prometheus line of cases out of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals prevents the Commission from relaxing any rules without first analyzing the impact that such relaxation would have on ownership rates by women and people of color.” Since radio contributes to viewpoint diversity, cross-ownership rules involving it should not be relaxed, said NHMC. The FCC should begin collecting and analyzing data about broadcast ownership by minorities and women, said the group. That should include an examination of the data collected through Form 323 submissions, a resumption of collection of Form 395 equal employment opportunity data and a public release of that information, said NHMC.