UPDATE: FCC Acting Chairman To Act Boldly On Media Diversity
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairman Michael Copps said Wednesday he intends to act boldly to help improve the diversity of broadcasters in the U.S.
"Today we commit to getting independent and credible information to gird what I intend to be meaningful action to right the injustice" of the lack minority- and women-owned broadcasters in the U.S., Copps said at an FCC meeting.
The FCC approved a proposal to improve data collection about broadcasting entities owned by women and minorities. The FCC voted to expand the number of broadcast entities that must file data to the commission about the ethnicity of their owners.
The Internet advocacy group Free Press said the FCC's 2007 data collection process missed over half of the radio stations owned by women and minorities and over two-thirds of the television stations. Still, Free Press says women and minorities own less than 10% of the full-power radio and TV stations in the country.
Media diversity has been a priority Copps, who is serving as interim FCC Chairman until President Barack Obama's pick for the job, Julius Genachowski, is installed. Genachowski has yet to be confirmed.
Copps announced Wednesday that he will appoint new members to a diversity advisory committee that will advise the FCC on how to expand media diversity. Among other things, the committee will examine whether the FCC should analyze broadcast license applications more broadly to help bolster the proportion of women and media owners.
Copps said the committee will be asked to recommend changes the FCC can put forth now to correct the "benign neglect" the commission has given the media diversity issue in recent years.
"It requires some clear signals that we're moving now, and we're trying to convey that signal today, that this commission is deadly serious about finally doing something on the sorry state of minority and female owned properties in our broadcast industries," he said.
Signaling that he doesn't intend to back away from aggressive policies pushing media diversity, Copps said he expects court challenges to the commission's "far-reaching policy changes." The additional data will bolster the FCC's position in court, he said.