FCC Decision Shows Significance of Association Membership
Attention Turned to EEO Data and Expansion of Regulatory Fees
Letter from the President
Earlier this month the collective efforts of the KAB, NAB and other state broadcast associations (NASBA) were successful in preventing an FCC rate increase for all broadcast stations. The proposed regulatory fees for broadcasters dropped by about 9 percent, putting broadcaster regulatory fees at or below 2020 levels. This outcome was achieved through joint comment filing and conversations among state broadcast associations and the NAB with the FCC chair. Although fees are still more than anyone would like, we’re still pleased with this win, which is a powerful example of the benefit of state broadcast associations.
FCC Fee Expansion, Summary written by Scott Flick
We also filed extensive Joint Reply Comments urging the FCC to expand both the types and numbers of parties charged FCC regulatory fees to include all beneficiaries of FCC services, including large technology companies and equipment manufacturers that benefit from selling devices which use unlicensed spectrum and/or are allowed access to the U.S. market only because they have been FCC-certified. Since the inception of FCC regulatory fees as the manner in which the FCC funds its operations, broadcasters and others holding FCC licenses have paid a disproportionate share of the FCC’s expenses. Particularly in light of changes to the regulatory fee statute made by the RAY BAUM’s Act of 2018 and a recent court decision interpreting it, it is clear that the law requires all “beneficiaries” of FCC activities, not just those holding FCC licenses, to pay annual regulatory fees covering the costs of those FCC activities. The State Associations urged the FCC to modify the process by which it sets and collects regulatory fees to create a fairer system which recognizes the many benefits received by device manufacturers and marketers, and which therefore charges them appropriate annual regulatory fees. Expanding the base of regulatory fee payors in this manner will reduce broadcasters’ share of FCC expenses that must be paid for through regulatory fees, hopefully reducing each station’s future annual regulatory fees significantly.
EEO Rules, Summary written by Scott Flick
Your Association, in combination with the state broadcasters associations of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, filed extensive Joint Reply Comments urging the FCC to reject the proposed reinstatement of FCC Form 395-B, which requires broadcast stations to report annually to the FCC their employee workforce categorized by race, ethnicity, gender and job category. The Joint Reply Comments noted that the FCC ceased use of the Form 395-B twenty years ago in response to two separate decisions by the U.S. Court of Appeals that found prior iterations of the FCC’s associated EEO rules to be unconstitutional, in part because the employee data collected through the Form 395-B was used by the FCC to effectively enforce racial and gender quotas on stations whose workforces did not adequately match the characteristics of the local labor force. The Associations noted that the FCC lacks an adequate government interest in collecting such data, and particularly given the history of the form and those prior court decisions, reinstating the Form 395-B would place impermissible pressure on broadcasters to make race- and gender-based hiring decisions in order to achieve FCC-favored outcomes. The Joint Reply Comments argued that the FCC lacks any statutory authority for such data collection, and that alternate sources of such information, such as the EEOC and RTDNA, can provide similar information without creating the constitutional and statutory issues raised by the Form 395-B. Finally, should the FCC nonetheless proceed with reinstatement of the Form 395-B, the Associations urged the FCC to maintain the confidentiality of the collected information, and to use it only in aggregate form for industry trend purposes rather than station-specific actions.