Spurred on by the FCC’s proposal to create an online public inspection file for television broadcasters, reporter Meredith Hoffman at the New York Times decided to check out the paper public files at a variety of New York City broadcasters, both TV and radio. Not surprisingly, but still disappointingly, the reporter encountered puzzled receptionists and staff at many studios, but not much cooperation.

The staff at the Clear Channel cluster “chided a reporter for trying to enter without an appointment and insisted she arrange a time at least one day in advance,” while the receptionist at the Emmis Communications office for two stations took down the reporter’s contact information, but nobody from the company followed up. Even representatives of NBC owned-and-operated WNBC-TV put the reporter off for a week, only complying with the request to see the file after a call to corporate. Apparently Comcast-NBC hasn’t learned anything from the $225,000 it paid to the FCC for failing to provide sufficient public access to the file at other stations.

As its name would imply, the whole point of the public inspection file is that it is supposed to be available for the public to come in and inspect. The FCC requires that it be accessible during normal business hours, without having to make an appointment. Inside the file are documentation of a station’s public service programming, copies of its license and ownership reports and other items relevant to a station’s authorization to broadcast and observance of the public trust. As the Times article plays for levity, stations are also required to keep copies of correspondence from the public in the file.

While the complaints of a viewer who wrote a station regarding a news person’s attire may make the public file seem trivial, the fact is the majority of the file’s contents are not so trivial. Even reading comments from other viewers or listeners may in fact provide a fuller picture about ongoing or persistent problems at the station. While many broadcasters whine about the burden of maintaining the public inspection file, when you take into consideration the fact that most of them pay absolutely nothing for their valuable license to broadcast it hardly seems like much of a burden at all.

The FCC is also proposing to reduce redundancy by not requiring broadcasters to resubmit items to their online public files that already have been submitted to the Commission. For instance, stations are required to keep a copy of their biannual ownership reports in their public files, which is something also submitted to the FCC. Other documents, like quarterly Issues and Programming lists are only kept in the public file.

The Commission is also seeking comment on suggestions to require postings on sponsorship identification information, now disclosed only on-air, and shared services agreements.

The FCC also indicated that it is not yet ready to take up revisions to public file requirements for radio. Instead the Commission is going to wait to see how changes work for TV, while also acknowledging that radio is a different case, due at least in part to the fact that radio stations are typically smaller organizations. I do think that it’s highly unlikely that public file requirements for radio will go away.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman of the public interest organization the Media Access Project said of the proposal,

For twenty-five years, it has been FCC policy to place primary reliance on listeners to identify broadcasters who do not deserve license renewal. The absence of useful information about broadcasters’ performance has made the license renewal process a meaningless charade.

Today’s action makes useful information available, and makes it much more accessible to the public.

The Broadcast Law Blog has a very thorough rundown of the many aspects of the FCC’s proposal.

A document that all stations are required to keep in their public files.

The public file is a an actual file of paper documents that every broadcast station is required to maintain in its main office. In it are records like a copy of the station’s license and ownership report, along with a quarterly Issues and Programming report which is supposed to detail public service programming. Although very few people realize it, every citizen has the right to ask to inspect a station’s public file during normal business hours.

As John Anderson reported earlier this year, the FCC is considering the future of the public file in response to the Paperwork Reduction Act. In 2007 the FCC actually adopted rules to require television broadcasters to maintain an online public file with greater detail on public service programming. But these rules never went into effect.

At its October open meeting [agenda PDF] the Commission is scheduled to take up the issue of online public files for television stations again. Officially the item will be an “an Order on Reconsideration of the 2007 Enhanced Disclosure Report and Order and a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.”

In a recent post to the firm’s Broadcast Law Blog, David Oxford from the law office of Davis Wright Tremaine says that there are signs the FCC sees “‘renewed interest’ in the questions of the public interest standards that should be applicable to broadcasters,” and guesses that the Commission will probably move towards some kind of online public file requirement, possibly with the documents hosted by the FCC.

What happens for television is likely to happen for radio. However, it’s likely all broadcasters will kick and scream about the supposed burden of maintaining public file documentation. As someone who actually maintains a public file I can say that it does not come close to requiring a whole extra employee as some critics have complained. And as a supporter of public service requirements, I would welcome clearer standards for what counts as public service and instructions for properly documenting it.

I will certainly be watching next week’s FCC meeting and will follow up here.

This is not a self-imposed initiative: it is a consideration the agency is mandated to make, courtesy of the Paperwork Reduction Act. It requires regulatory agencies to periodically review their rules and justify their existence to the Office of Management and Budget.

A communications law attorney filed a Petition for Rulemaking directly with the FCC to do away with the public file five years ago. The Petition attracted less than three dozen comments, most of which came from broadcasters who supported killing it off. The FCC circular-filed the idea.

According to the D.C. telecom law firm of Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth, the local station public file requirement is essentially pointless:

According to many broadcasters…such files are largely if not totally ineffective and unnecessary, since (in the reported experience of many of those broadcasters) the public seldom if ever inspects the files. From that perspective, the requirement to maintain the files is an empty make-work exercise that serves no purpose. . . other than to provide the FCC with a way to collect tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars in fines from folks who happen not to have dotted all their public file I’s and crossed all their public file T’s.

Indeed, the FCC takes the public file requirement very seriously – having recently fined several stations thousands of dollars apiece for failing to maintain them properly.

However, the argument to abolish is circular. Public files of broadcast stations are seldom inspected because the public is largely unaware that they exist, and even less aware that it has the right to inspect them. Stations certainly don’t go out of their way to inform the public of its rights in this regard, which further exacerbates the lack of utilization.

Couching advocacy for the banishment of the public file requirement as economically burdensome is also a cop-out. Given the consolidation the radio industry has experienced since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, it’s no surprise that stations are letting this important license requirement slip: there’s no longer enough people employed at radio stations to properly maintain many public files.

The slashing of station personnel arguably has made public file maintenance more burdensome – but that’s a consequence of prior bad broadcast policy, and no excuse for eliminating this rule.

In fact, one could argue that the public file requirement is the last meaningful remnant of the FCC’s “commitment” to localism in broadcasting. Sure, the agency’s Localism Task Force has studied the issue – even to the point of publishing a detailed Report and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2008, which would have promoted more use of the public file rules – but nothing has come of it.

On its face, I’d be willing to trade the public file requirement for localism regulations with more teeth, but that’s a pipe-dream.

Public comments on this issue will be accepted through June 17. There is no formal FCC proceeding on the subject, but you can send feedback via e-mail to PRA@fcc.gov and Cathy.Williams@FCC.gov. There’s a better-than-even chance that the FCC will recommend keeping the public file rule, but the OMB has final say. Giving the FCC fodder to strengthen its justification can’t hurt.

[This story was initially published on DIYmedia.net.]

Do you know where your station's public file is?

One of the things that every radio DJ learns during training is the importance of a station’s “public file.”

Every FCC-licensed broadcast station in the United States is required to maintain a public inspection file, containing a number of items including documents pertaining to a station’s license and ownership.

The file should also house FCC complaints, a political file (with details on requests for purchase of airtime by political candidates, etc.), letters and emails from the public (only required of commercial stations), the manual “The Public and Broadcasting,” an issues/programs list related to public service programming, a list of donors, and a number of other items required by the FCC.

If a member of the public enters a radio or TV station requesting to see a station’s public file, they are supposed to be granted access to those documents. Part of the rationale for this is to ensure that stations are serving the public interest.

Unfortunately, some stations (and station staffs) are unclear on the rules regarding public files; so have been hit with hefty fines when they did not comply with public requests.

In the most recent incident, Gaston College radio station WSGE in Dallas, North Carolina was levied a fine of $8,000 by the FCC for “willfully and repeatedly violating Section 73.3527 of the Commission’s rules relating to a noncommercial licensee’s obligation to properly maintain and make available a public inspection file.”

According to the FCC’s forfeiture order (dated January 29, 2010), a member of the public was refused access to the radio station’s public file during regular business hours and was told to make an appointment with the station’s attorney. Upon return to the station, he was eventually given access to the file and complained to the FCC that certain items were either missing or incomplete.

What’s interesting (and alarming) about this case is the station’s allegation that the individual who came to the station requesting access to the file was from a religious institution with a vested interest in trying to get the Gaston College station kicked off the air. According to the FCC’s Forfeiture Order:

“Gaston College characterized the Complainant’s behavior during the first visit as ‘hostile,’ and asked the Bureau to view the Complaint in the context of its past dealings with the Complainant’s employer, Columbia Bible College.

In this regard, Gaston College contended that Columbia Bible College has been engaged in a ‘pattern of harassment and intimidation’ by pursuing FCC proceedings against Gaston College, and that Columbia Bible College’s actions, through the Complainant, are motivated by its prior unsuccessful efforts to acquire the Station. Gaston College alleged that Columbia Bible College is attempting to misuse the Commission’s processes to force the licensee to sell the Station.”

This is enough to send chills up the spine of every college radio station staffer and is a good reminder for stations to get their files in order and instruct all station staff on procedures in regard to requests from the public to view the public file.

At the same time, it’s disturbing to think that there are groups out there who are focused on filing complaints with the FCC in order to get stations kicked off the air.