Nonprofits lobbied the FCC more against media ownership deregulation, while NAB...

4 on Media Bureau figures (CD Dec 5 p1) showing who owns what radio and TV stations by race and gender isn’t enough time, a coalition of civil-rights groups said. “This extremely brief period leaves the Commission open to challenge before the courts because it is self-evidently insufficient,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote FCC members. The bureau’s public notice this week “seeks comment on raw data that provides no analysis explaining why the proposed rule changes in the 2010 Quadrennial Review docket will improve ownership rates by women and people of color,” the group continued. NAB wants the agency to “address the specific issues” in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ remand “in a direct and clear manner,” NAB General Counsel Jane Mago reported telling FCC General Counsel Sean Lev (http://xrl.us/bn4y3r). There’s “no justification for voting out an order that fails to comply with the Third Circuit’s mandate” by not considering rule changes’ effect on the ability for women and people of color to buy broadcast assets, Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood reported telling an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. “Increased media consolidation is exactly the wrong remedy for this longstanding problem” of low ownership rates among people in those demographic groups, Wood said (http://xrl.us/bn4y4d). It’s “entirely possible that large media conglomerates with broadcast licenses in markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago could -- and likely would -- pursue daily newspaper properties in the same” area if the commission allows common ownership of a TV station not rated top four and a daily in the region, he said. A blog post Wednesday on Free Press’s website (http://xrl.us/bn4y4j) titled “FCC Spin vs. Fact” was on what deregulation could allow, as the group opposed to consolidation and FCC officials working for Chairman Julius Genachowski debate whether the draft order that’s circulating would allow further concentration. The final order “should impose reporting requirements and collect data about” shared services agreements between separately owned TV stations within a market, public-interest communications lawyer Andrew Schwartzman reported telling an aide to Rosenworcel. Only seeking information “would be insufficient,” Schwartzman wrote, representing only himself (http://xrl.us/bn4zm7). To NAB, “sharing arrangements facilitate the production of local news” and “economic efficiencies” by TV stations, Mago and other association lawyers told bureau officials. NAB said (http://xrl.us/bn4y46) it backs several proposals from the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council that are “technical in nature and are not specific to ownership,” including technical rule deregulation, that would “reduce entry barriers and promote efficiencies for existing broadcast stations owned by minorities, women and small entities."