NAB, ACDDE Members Don't Agree on Incubator Program

depend on congressionally authorized tax credits and avoids limiting joint sales and shared services agreements, NAB told Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey in a Monday meeting, said a filing. NAB “supports the FCC’s adoption of a fully-formed incubator program at this time, rather than one that is contingent on future Congressional action that may or may not occur,” said the filing. Incentivizing incubators with ownership rule waivers would “plunge” the program “into the politics of broadcasting’s ‘100 Years War’” over media ownership, said late replies by 22 individual members of the ACDDE, the body’s Broadcast Development Working Group. Limitations on sharing arrangements between incubator participants would prevent abuse, the committee members said. Since rules don’t limit broadcasters not involved in incubator programs from such relationships, harsher rules shouldn’t be imposed on incubator participants, NAB said. It favors a “new entrant” standard in deciding who would be eligible to be incubated, but the committee members said the FCC should use the “Overcoming Disadvantages Preference,” a mechanism for designating eligible entities that could survive constitutional challenges. The committees and NAB also had some agreements, with the association agreeing “Native Nations” is a possible race neutral standard that could be used by the agency, and the committee members agreeing with several NAB suggestions about how an incubator program could be operated.