FCC Solicits Bids on Media Study, Asks for Suggestions for More Studies
The FCC issued a request for quotations (http://xrl.us/bmra7g) on a study examining how Americans meet their information needs, how the media addresses those needs and what barriers exist to providing content and services to address those needs, a Monday public notice said. The commission is asking for an analysis of the existing research to determine the utility of existing data, the notice said. “It is first necessary to examine what prior research has been conducted,” the notice said. The FCC also asked for suggestions by Feb. 27 on additional studies it should commission.
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Commissioner Mignon Clyburn praised the step. The public notice meets the FCC duty to comply with Section 257 of the Communications Act, she said. That section requires the commission to regularly report to Congress its efforts to eliminate market entry barriers for small businesses and promote diversity among media voices. “We are in need of more detail in describing how the Commission’s actions have fulfilled those purposes, and set forth, where appropriate, specific examples of the data that support the conclusions found in past FCC reports,” Clyburn said. “This type of inquiry should have been a fundamental aspect of the Federal Communications Commission’s policy strategy all along."
Free Press said soliciting bids on the study is an important step in the FCC’s media ownership review process. “It’s encouraging that the FCC is finally moving forward with this long-overdue research,” said Free Press Senior Policy Counsel Corie Wright. “It has been nearly 13 years since the FCC first changed its policies to allow greater local media market concentration, a move that was followed by a sharp decline in the level of ownership of broadcast stations among racial and ethnic minorities,” she said.
Such a review may also help the FCC’s ownership rules pass muster with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Wright said. “The court has twice told the FCC that it must both evaluate the impact of its media ownership rules on minority and female ownership and consider targeted measures to address longstanding ownership disparities,” she said.
The request for quotations is broad in its scope, said David Honig, executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. “The RFP encompasses more than just the question of ownership ... going to how broadcasters serve community needs,” Honig said. “The same question was taken up in the Future of Media report, which also recommended these studies be undertaken,” he said.
Honig also praised Commissioner Clyburn for highlighting the importance of examining how the current system is informing communities in times of emergency, an issue MMTC has been pushing. “If the infrastructure is not adequately informing communities about imminent natural disaster, a terror threat, a widespread health threat or another public hazard, it is not adequately serving the public interest,” Clyburn said.