Broadcasters: Foreign-Sponsored Content Rules Could Deter Religious Programming

Broadcasters are united in their opposition to proposed retooling of the FCC’s foreign-sponsored content rules, according to reply comments posted by Tuesday’s deadline in docket 20-299.

The additional certifications and reporting proposed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision are unnecessary, would increase the burden on stations, deter leasing by local and religious organizations, and would exceed FCC authority, said all four major networks, TV and radio broadcasters, the National Religious Broadcasters and a collection of church programmers, according to nearly all commenters. “Nothing in the record remotely supports a conclusion that there has been a wave of foreign propaganda broadcast on U.S. radio and television,” said a joint filing from 14 broadcasters, including Nexstar, Cumulus and Entravision. “No party filed initial comments demonstrating a need for or otherwise supporting the proposals advanced in the Second NPRM.”

All the commenters said the agency should narrow the scope of the proposed requirements, by clarifying that commercial advertisements aren’t programming leases covered by the rules and carving out exceptions for religious and local leasing arrangements. The FCC’s original rules excluded short-form advertising “without defining that term or explaining whether or why any commercial advertising should be within the scope of the foreign sponsorship identification rules,” said a joint filing from ABC, Paramount Global, Fox and NBCUniversal. That caused “substantial uncertainty, leading broadcasters to proceed as though the rules may apply to advertisements that are not ‘short’ in duration,” the programmers said.

Without an exception for commercial ads or language that requires filings only when foreign sponsorship is discovered, the volume of filings the rules would require would be prohibitive, numerous broadcasters said. Several broadcasters said they had already put a great deal of resources toward complying with the original foreign-sponsored content rules and found no such content. The proposed changes would require broadcasters to “go through a similar process all over again to contact the same advertisers and programming providers and ask them to sign a new certification,” said Cox Media Group. “CMG respectfully asserts that, based on its experience with the first round of compliance, the time and cost of a second round of compliance will be far from ‘minimal.’” Existing sponsorship ID rules already prevent broadcasters from airing advertisements without disclosing the sponsor, several filings said.

Since many leases for religious programming are short term and the proposed rules would require new certifications at each renewal, they could have a chilling effect on religious programming, said the NRB and religious programmers.

The proposed rule “substantially increases the burdens associated with such lease arrangements by imposing onerous administrative burdens,” said a joint filing from numerous religious programmers. “We need to maintain the financial flexibility of the week-to-week lease agreement in case we need to cancel and redirect our funds elsewhere on short notice,” said a testimonial from Chris Nichols, pastor at Lifeline Church in Princeton, West Virginia. “The likely result will be that broadcasters move to other potential lessees,” said the joint religious programmer filing. Scripps “will not be able to justify keeping the low rates available to local programmers if administrative costs rise substantially,” the company said. “China can’t own local schools and the Russian government doesn’t own synagogues,” said the four network affiliate associations in a joint filing.

The rule changes would face the same legal issues that the FCC lost on in the D.C. Circuit, and also raise constitutional questions, several commenters said. “The expanded requirements proposed in the Second NPRM would exceed the FCC’s power under the statute by mandating more than the reasonable diligence required,” said the joint filing from Nexstar and other broadcasters. “The proposals are of dubious legality” after the D.C. Circuit decision, said Audacy and Beasley Media in a joint filing. “Freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion are both implicated by these rules,” said NRB. “Religious broadcasters, be they licensees or lessees, are engaged in quintessential First Amendment activities.”