On Friday, the Petitions for Reconsideration of the FCC’s multiple ownership decision is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register. And as broadcast attorney David Oxenford points out in his latest blog, this starts the clock on comments on the petitions. For radio, Oxenford says “issues are raised about the counting of stations for ownership cap purposes when those stations are located in ’embedded markets’ in one of the two metropolitan areas where there are more than one embedded market.”
For both radio and TV, the NAB challenges the newspaper-broadcast and radio-television cross-ownership bans, and the FCC’s decision to leave those bans in place. The NAB also objects to the FCC rejection of a proposal for the establishment of an incubator program to encourage new entrants into the broadcast industry. See our list of some of the issues considered in the FCC’s August ownership decision here.
The Petitions for Reconsideration raise several issues, both for radio and TV. Comments will be due Tuesday, January 17 and replies on Friday, January 27.
