FCC Should Eliminate 8 Voices Test, Cross-Ownership Rule, NAB Says

The FCC should eliminate the eight voices test and newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule, NAB wrote the agency, posted in docket 14-50 Tuesday. That cross-ownership rule "affirmatively harms localism," and "exacerbates the perilous state of the newspaper industry," NAB said. The eight voices test "erroneously assumes that broadcast TV stations exist in a separate competitive universe that lacks multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), the Internet, online and mobile video services and all other competitors," NAB said. "That assumption is contrary to reality." The FCC can't use the incentive auction as a basis for not concluding the 2010 and 2014 quadrennial reviews in the time frame established by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, NAB said. "Because Congress and the Commission already have decided that reducing the number of TV stations will serve the public interest, the Commission cannot properly use that public interest judgment as a basis to further delay fulfilling its obligation."