More paper regulations could soon be a thing of the past. On Thursday, the FCC launched a proceeding to consider eliminating various rules that require the maintenance and posting of broadcast licenses and related information in specific locations. It’s a rule that was put on the books back in 1930. This is the 10th proceeding the Commission has launched to modernize outdated regulations.
Because the vast majority of the information contained on these licenses is now available through the Commission’s electronic databases, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asks whether regulations requiring broadcast licenses and related authorizations to be physically posted are outdated and no longer necessary.
Here’s what Chairman Pai said about the 90-year-old rule. “Perhaps the motivation back then was to ensure that station authorizations, ownership, and contact information would be readily available to the Commission and the public. But today, the vast majority of this information is easily accessible via the Commission’s electronic databases. Moreover, in some cases, you can’t see posted licenses even if you want to; the transmitter sites at which stations are required to post them aren’t physically accessible to or viewable by the public. As a result, I’m skeptical that our license posting rules currently serve any useful purpose and look forward to reviewing comments from stakeholders discussing whether they should be eliminated.”
Now this is amusing. The feds ask for an unlicensed station to produce a license while they should know all along whether someone is in fact licensed or not and now here it indicates a change to not be required to display whether a facility is in fact licensed and transmitting from a licensed facility. If this rule is relaxed why not go on a bit farther and just relax the requirement for a broadcast license? I notice O’Reilly and Pai are very unstable when it comes to regulating the airwaves and making sensible decisions.