[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 222 (Thursday, November 17, 2011)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 71267-71269]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-29505]


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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

47 CFR Part 73

[MB Docket Nos. 00-168, 00-44; FCC 11-162]


Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure Requirements for Television 
Broadcast Licensee Public Interest Obligations; Extension of the Filing 
Requirement for Children's Television Programming Report (FCC Form 398)

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Final rule.

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SUMMARY: In this document, the Commission adopts an Order on 
Reconsideration that vacates Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure 
Requirements for Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest 
Obligations; Extension of the Filing Requirement For Children's 
Television Programming Report (FCC Form 398), MB Docket No. 00-168, 00-
44, FCC 07-205, Report & Order, (``Order''). The Order created a 
standardized form for the quarterly reporting of programming aired in 
response to issues facing a television station's community and a 
requirement that portions of each television station's public 
inspection file be placed on the Internet. The Order was never 
implemented.

DATES: Effective November 17, 2011.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Holly Saurer, [email protected] of 
the Policy Division, Media Bureau, (202) 418-2120.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Federal 
Communications Commission's Order on Reconsideration in MB Docket No. 
00-168, 00-44, FCC 11-162, adopted October 27, 2011, and released 
October 27, 2011. The full text of this document is available for 
public inspection and copying during regular business hours in the FCC 
Reference Center, Federal Communications Commission, 445 12th Street 
SW., CY-A257, Washington, DC 20554. These documents will also be 
available via ECFS (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/). (Documents will be 
available electronically in ASCII, Word 97, and/or Adobe Acrobat.) The 
complete text may be purchased from the Commission's copy contractor, 
445 12th Street SW., Room CY-B402, Washington, DC 20554. To request 
this document in accessible formats (computer diskettes, large print, 
audio recording, and Braille), send an email to [email protected] or call 
the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-
0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY).

Summary of the Final Rule

I. Introduction

    1. In this Order on Reconsideration we take steps to modernize the 
way television broadcasters inform the public about how they are 
serving their communities. We vacate the prior Report and Order,\1\ 
thereby resolving pending petitions for reconsideration of that order, 
re-codify the public file rules in existence prior to adoption of the 
Report and Order, and seek comment on the proposals set forth in a 
Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
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    \1\ In the Matter of Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure 
Requirements for Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest 
Obligations, Report and Order, 73 FR 13452 (2007) (``Report and 
Order''); In the Matter of Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure 
Requirements for Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest 
Obligations, Erratum, 73 FR 30316 (2007).
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II. Background

    2. One of a television broadcaster's fundamental public interest 
obligations is to air programming responsive to the needs and interests 
of its community of license. Broadcasters are afforded considerable 
flexibility in how they meet that obligation, but they must maintain a 
public inspection file, which gives the public access to information 
about the station's operations and enables members of the public to 
engage in an active dialogue with broadcast licensees regarding 
broadcast service. Among other things, the public inspection file must 
contain an issues/programs list, which describes the ``programs that 
have provided the station's most significant treatment of community 
issues during the preceding three month period.'' The original Notice 
of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding grew out of a prior Notice of 
Inquiry, which explored the public interest obligations of broadcast 
television stations as they transitioned to digital.\2\ In the 2000 
NPRM, the

[[Page 71268]]

Commission concluded that ``making information regarding how a 
television broadcast station serves the public interest easier to 
understand and more accessible will not only promote discussion between 
the licensee and its community, but will lessen the need for government 
involvement in ensuring that a station is meeting its public interest 
obligation.'' The Commission tentatively concluded to require 
television stations to use a standardized form to report on how they 
serve the public interest. The Commission also tentatively concluded to 
require television licensees to make the contents of their public 
inspection files, including the standardized form, available on their 
stations' Internet Web sites or, alternatively, on the Web site of 
their state broadcasters association. In 2007, the Commission adopted a 
Report and Order implementing these proposals.
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    \2\ Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure Requirements for 
Television Broadcast Licensee Public Interest Obligations, Notice of 
Proposed Rulemaking, 65 FR 62683 (2000) (``NPRM''); In the Matter of 
Public Interest Obligations of TV Broadcast Licensees, Notice of 
Inquiry, 65 FR 4211 (1999)(``NOI'').
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    3. Following the release of the Report and Order, the Commission 
received petitions for reconsideration from several industry 
petitioners and public interest advocates. The industry petitioners 
raised a number of issues regarding the standardized form and the 
online posting requirement, generally contending that the requirements 
were overly complex and burdensome. Public interest advocates argued 
that the political file \3\ should be included in the online public 
file requirement rather than exempted as provided in the Report and 
Order, and that the standardized form should be designed to facilitate 
the downloading and aggregation of data for researchers. In addition, 
five parties appealed the Report and Order, and the cases were 
consolidated in the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. 
The DC Circuit granted a petition to hold the proceeding in abeyance 
while we review the petitions for reconsideration. Challenging the 
rules in a third forum, several parties opposed the information 
collection contained in the Report and Order at the Office of 
Management and Budget (``OMB'') under the Paperwork Reduction Act. 
Because of the multiple petitions for reconsideration, the Commission 
has not transmitted the information collection to OMB for its approval, 
and therefore the rules adopted in the Report and Order have never gone 
into effect.\4\
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    \3\ Sections 73.3526(e)(6), 73.3527(e)(5) and 73.1943 of the 
Commission's rules require that stations keep as part of the public 
inspection files a ``political file.''
    \4\ See also 47 CFR 73.3526, effective date nt. 2; 47 CFR 
73.3526, effective date note; 47 CFR 73.1201, effective date note 2.
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    4. In June 2011, a working group including Commission staff, 
scholars and consultants released ``The Information Needs of 
Communities'' (``INC Report''), a comprehensive report on the current 
state of the media landscape.\5\ The INC Report discussed both the need 
to empower citizens to ensure that broadcasters serve their communities 
in exchange for the use of public spectrum, and also the need to remove 
unnecessary burdens on broadcasters who aim to serve their communities. 
The INC Report provided several recommendations relevant to this 
proceeding, including eliminating unnecessary paperwork and moving 
toward an online system for public disclosures in order to ensure 
greater public access. The INC Report also recommended requiring that 
when broadcasters allow advertisers to dictate content, they disclose 
the ``pay-for-play'' arrangements online as well as on the air in order 
to create a permanent, searchable record of these arrangements and 
afford easy access by consumers, competitors and watchdog groups to 
this information. The Report also suggested that governments at all 
levels collect and publish data in forms that make it easy for 
citizens, entrepreneurs, software developers, and reporters to access 
and analyze information in order to enable mechanisms that can present 
the data in more useful formats, and noted that greater transparency by 
government and media companies can help reduce the cost of reporting, 
empower consumers, and foster innovation.
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    \5\ ``The Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media 
Landscape in a Broadband Age,'' by Steven Waldman and the Working 
Group on Information Needs of Communities (June 2011), available at 
http://www.fcc.gov/infoneedsreport. As noted in the INC Report, the 
views of the report ``do not necessarily represent the views of the 
Federal Communications Commission, its Commissioners or any 
individual Bureaus or Offices.'' Id. at 362.
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    5. In the Order on Reconsideration, we conclude, in light of the 
reconsideration petitions we received with respect to the Report and 
Order and the comments and replies thereto, that the best course of 
action is to vacate the rules adopted in the Report and Order and 
develop a new record upon which we can evaluate our public file and 
standardized form requirements.

III. Order on Reconsideration

    6. We issued the 2007 Report and Order to modernize broadcasters' 
traditional public file requirement to improve the public's access to 
information on how the stations are serving their local communities. We 
remain dedicated to that objective and to bringing broadcast disclosure 
into the 21st century. Nonetheless, the reconsideration petitions we 
received from broadcasters and public interest advocates and the 
responses thereto have persuaded us to reexamine the balance we struck 
in 2007 between public access to station information and the burden 
providing such access imposes on broadcasters. In particular, the 
Report and Order was based upon an NOI and an NPRM that were issued 
over a decade ago, and the record upon which those rules were adopted 
does not reflect the rapid technological advances that have occurred 
over the last ten years. Furthermore, the Report and Order was issued 
approximately three and a half years ago, and since then we have seen 
even more technological and marketplace changes that may be pertinent 
to our consideration of broadcasters' public disclosure obligations. In 
light of these considerations, we conclude that the best course of 
action is to take a fresh look at the policy issues raised in this 
proceeding.
    7. We further conclude that we should vacate the Report and Order. 
The rules adopted in that order cannot take effect without OMB approval 
of the information collection under the Paperwork Reduction Act, and we 
see no reason to undertake that process given our decision to take a 
fresh look at the issues. Accordingly, vacating the Report and Order 
will have no practical effect on any party. Moreover, the record 
compiled thus far in this proceeding will continue to be available to 
any party going forward, and it will also be incorporated into the new 
docket we will create to focus on the standardized form. In these 
circumstances, we see no benefit to keeping the Report and Order in 
place, and by vacating that decision, we remove any procedural or 
regulatory uncertainty that might otherwise arise if we failed to take 
action to respond to the reconsideration petitions that have been filed 
while moving forward to reevaluate the issues.\6\ Although the

[[Page 71269]]

2007 rules never became effective, they appear in the Code of Federal 
Regulations (``CFR''), while the pre-existing public file rules, which 
remain in effect, were removed from the CFR. For purposes of 
clarification, these pre-existing public file rules are being added 
back to the CFR, as reflected in the rules as outlined in the document. 
We believe that it is important to re-codify the existing rules, so 
that the CFR reflects the rules in existence at this time, and so that 
the public and stations can clearly find the public file and station 
identification requirements.
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    \6\ The Commission has inherent authority to revisit its policy 
determinations at any time, and when it does so, it ``need not 
demonstrate to a court's satisfaction that the reasons for the new 
policy are better than the reasons for the old one; it suffices that 
the new policy is permissible under the statute, that there are good 
reasons for it, and that the agency believes it to be better, which 
the conscious change of course adequately indicates.'' FCC v. Fox 
Television Stations, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 1800, 1811 (2009). For these 
reasons, we do not believe that the Report and Order in any way 
binds or constrains our ability to reexamine our policies based upon 
an updated record. In the same vein, our decision to vacate the 
Report and Order should not be interpreted as an affirmative 
rejection of the rules or policies contained therein. Thus, our 
decision to take a fresh look does not preclude us from deciding 
that certain aspects of the Report and Order were correctly decided 
and should be re-adopted.
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    8. For the foregoing reasons, we grant the petitions for 
reconsideration that were filed, to the extent our vacatur of the 
Report and Order grants the relief requested by the petitions. In all 
other respects, the reconsideration petitions are dismissed as moot.

IV. Procedural Matters

    9. The Commission will send a copy of this Order on Reconsideration 
to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to the 
Congressional Review Act, see 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A).

V. Ordering Clauses

    10. Accordingly, It Is Ordered that pursuant to the Sections 4(i), 
303 and 405 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 154(i), 303, and 405, 
the Report and Order released on January 24, 2008 in the above 
captioned proceeding is Vacated on our own motion, and 47 CFR 
73.1201(b), 3526(b) and (e)(11) and 3527(b) and (e)(8) will be re-
codified consistent with the rules outlined in this document.
    11. It Is Further Ordered that pursuant to Sections 4(i), and 405 
of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 154(i) and 
405, and Section 1.106 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.106, the 
Petitions for Reconsideration filed by the petitioners listed in 
Appendix A Are Hereby Granted In Part and Are Otherwise Dismissed As 
Moot.

List of Subjects in 47 CFR Part 73

    Television.


Federal Communications Commission.
Marlene H. Dortch,
Secretary.

Final Rules

    For the reasons discussed in the preamble, the Federal 
Communications Commission amends 47 CFR part 73 as follows:

PART 73--RADIO BROADCAST SERVICES

0
1. The authority citation for part 73 continues to read:

    Authority:  47 U.S.C. 154, 303, 334, 336, and 339.


Sec.  73.1201  [Amended]

0
2. Section 73.1201 is amended by removing paragraph (b)(3).

0
3. Section 73.3526 is amended by removing paragraphs (b)(1) and (b)(2) 
and (e)(9)(iii); and revising paragraphs (b) introductory text and 
(e)(11)(i) to read as follows:


Sec.  73.3526  Local public inspection file of commercial stations.

* * * * *
    (b) Location of the file. The public inspection file shall be 
maintained at the main studio of the station. An applicant for a new 
station or change of community shall maintain its file at an accessible 
place in the proposed community of license or at its proposed main 
studio.
* * * * *
    (e)(11)(i) TV issues/programs lists. For commercial TV and Class A 
broadcast stations, every three months a list of programs that have 
provided the station's most significant treatment of community issues 
during the preceding three month period. The list for each calendar 
quarter is to be filed by the tenth day of the succeeding calendar 
quarter (e.g., January 10 for the quarter October--December, April 10 
for the quarter January--March, etc.) The list shall include a brief 
narrative describing what issues were given significant treatment and 
the programming that provided this treatment. The description of the 
programs shall include, but shall not be limited to, the time, date, 
duration, and title of each program in which the issue was treated. The 
lists described in this paragraph shall be retained in the public 
inspection file until final action has been taken on the station's next 
license renewal application.
* * * * *

0
4. Section 73.3527 is amended by removing paragraphs (b)(1), (b)(2), 
(e)(8)(i) and (e)(8)(ii); and revising paragraphs (b) introductory text 
and (e)(8) introductory text to read as follows:


Sec.  73.3527  Local public inspection file of noncommercial 
educational stations.

* * * * *
    (b) Location of the file. The public inspection file shall be 
maintained at the main studio of the station. An applicant for a new 
station or change of community shall maintain its file at an accessible 
place in the proposed community of license or at its proposed main 
studio.
* * * * *
    (e)(8) Issues/Programs Lists. For nonexempt noncommercial 
educational broadcast stations, every three months a list of programs 
that have provided the station's most significant treatment of 
community issues during the preceding three month period. The list for 
each calendar quarter is to be filed by the tenth day of the succeeding 
calendar quarter (e.g., January 10 for the quarter October-December, 
April 10 for the quarter January-March, etc.). The list shall include a 
brief narrative describing what issues were given significant treatment 
and the programming that provided this treatment. The description of 
the programs shall include, but shall not be limited to, the time, 
date, duration, and title of each program in which the issue was 
treated. The lists described in this paragraph shall be retained in the 
public inspection file until final action has been taken on the 
station's next license renewal application.
* * * * *
[FR Doc. 2011-29505 Filed 11-16-11; 8:45 am]
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