MMTC Supports Elimination

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In supplemental comments filed with the FCC, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council says the Main Studio Rule is bad for minority broadcasters because it imposes a greater disadvantage on broadcasters who entered the industry later and were unable to assemble clusters of stations that each shared the same community license. Here’s what MMTC Executive Director David Hong (pictured) told Radio Ink last night about why this rule needs to go.

Honig says because minority broadcasters got into broadcasting late, they wound up trying to serve segregated minority populations with inferior suburban rim-shot stations, and having to do that with multiple main studios rather than a single co-located one downtown. “The greater expense of serving the public in this way is imposed by virtue of late entry due to lack of white-skin privilege, and due to racial redlining that caused residential segregation. These factors translate into large economic costs paid because of racial discrimination. Those costs are a tax on blackness and late entry.”

Honig says MMTC does not see much value to the consumer for the rule either. “It’s the FCC telling the broadcaster ‘You must have a building to serve the public from’ when the better way might be to serve the public from a van, or a garage, or in some other innovative way. Technology has overtaken the rationale for having this kind of rule.”

Honig says he counts at least three votes in favor of eliminating the rule. “I called the Clyburn and Rosenworcel offices to ask for their concurrences due to the minority impact.”

Read the supplemental comments filed by the MMTC HERE.

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