WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has sent out Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audit letters to 150 randomly selected TV and radio stations.

Each year, the FCC said it plans to send audit letters to approximately five percent of all radio and television stations. The letters dated October 18 were the second round of audit letters that have been sent in 2024.

Earlier this year, the FCC issued an order to reinstate the collection of radio and television stations’ workforce composition data on FCC Form 395-B. The FCC's Fourth Report and Order reinstating Form 395-B said the data would help it better track diversity in the broadcast industry. The rules went into effect on June 3 but the NAB and others have asked the FCC to reconsider the decision.

The data collection has also been challenged in the courts.

The deadline for stations to upload responses to their FCC-hosted online public inspection files is December 2, 2024 unless the stations request an extension, the FCC said.

However, stations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia whose operations were disrupted by Hurricanes Helene or Milton do not need to request an extension and may respond by Jan. 16, 2025, if additional time is needed. Stations in the impacted areas may contact the Enforcement Bureau to discuss further options if circumstances prevent them from responding to their audits by this extended deadline.

WASHINGTON—The call from broadcasters to reduce Equal Employment Opportunity rules entirely misses the point of the FCC’s efforts regarding EEO efforts, according to the Multicultural Media Telecom & Internet Council.

“The proceeding is not about how to totally eviscerate, diminish or cripple EEO enforcement,” MMTC wrote in its reply comments to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EEO. “Instead, the NPRM called for comments on how to improve the current EEO enforcement system.”

This stance is based on comments filed by the NAB and other broadcaster groups that argued for the removal or reworking of current EEO enforcement methods. One of the arguments made for this by state broadcaster associations is that there hasn’t been an indictment of a single broadcaster on discrimination since the EEO rules were instituted in 1969. However, MMTC sees that as precisely the problem.

“It is simply not the case that broadcasting is the only industry in the nation whose thousands of employers included no racial or gender discriminations in the past 50 years,” MMTC wrote. “The fact that an industry contains discriminators, but they never get prosecuted, much less held liable, is certainly not a strong argument for weakening the obviously insufficient EEO compliance program in place now.”

Other arguments made by broadcasters and those seeking to reduce or refine the EEO rules are based on cost or “burdensome” requirements. The MMTC counters by arguing that the EEO rules to avoid a potential audit only require they “recruit broadly,” which it states can be done by posting an open position online.

A specific point that MMTC said in its comments that it would like to see reinstituted as part of the EEO rules in the use of Form 395, which is designed to be able to determine and identify broadcasters who recruited broadly versus hiring through “word of mouth.”

All of this comes as a result of the FCC’s deregulation efforts of the EEO rules being denied by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which suggested that the FCC did not adequately gauge of the impact of its revisions—however, that ruling specifically dealt with diverse station ownership, not employment.

FCC’s ECFS has MMTC’s full comments.

WASHINGTON—In this latest series of articles on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EEO rules, the National Association of Broadcasters takes a stance that is shared by other broadcasters who have publicly commented in the ECFS database—that there is no evidence of discrimination in broadcasting that justifies additional regulation or that more EEO rules will actually increase employment diversity.

The NAB filed their reply comments as part of the FCC’s request for reply comments on the commission’s Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance and Enforcement Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

“Instead of imposing more top-down, unproductive obligations, the commission should focus its efforts on practical measures that will directly impact diversity,” the NAB said, such as increasing public awareness of EEO opportunities and industry education.

The NAB also took a stand against a proposal suggested by a group of EEO supporters that called for more frequent EEO audits. Rather, the NAB said, the FCC should minimize the unjustified burdens of EEO audits by eliminating audits for small broadcasters.

“The record does not contain a shred of evidence of discrimination in broadcasting,” the NAB said in their comment filing. The NAB said that the group relies on conjecture to argue that intentional discrimination is a widespread problem in broadcasting and that it demands additional regulation.

“Moreover, to our knowledge, the commission has conducted tens of thousands of reviews of broadcasters’ EEO programs since the rules became effective in 2003, without one finding of discrimination,” the NAB said.

As other broadcast groups have done in this proceeding, the NAB also raised the question of constitutionality. “The existing rules already push the boundaries of constitutionality. No previous version of the commission’s EEO rule has survived judicial scrutiny, and the current rules persist in part because they have never been challenged,” the NAB said.

“[I]mposing more rules, especially the collection of data about the racial and gender composition of a station’s workforce on Form 395-B, could threaten their sustainability,” the NAB said. Thus, the commission should be extremely wary of imposing additional EEO requirements.

Comments on the FCC’s EEO proposed rulemaking can be seen in the commissions’ ECFS database using Media Bureau Docket Number 19-177.

WASHINGTON—In recently filed comments on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EEO Compliance and Enforcement, the NAB suggests a new method for promoting diversity in the broadcast industry instead of reworked or increased rules and regulations, which the organization says are overly burdensome on broadcasters.

Claiming that broadcasters already take appropriate actions toward promoting diversity in the industry because of the benefits it inherently provides both their business and communities they serve, NAB criticized the current rules, saying that they “push the outer limits of constitutionality,” put significant burdens of time and expenses on stations to fill out required paperwork and claiming that data from the last 17 years say that the regulations are effective as possible.

NAB thinks a new, streamlined process could be beneficial for diversity efforts and on what is expected of broadcasters.

“Instead of taking the easy, familiar path of focusing on additional rules and regulations, the Commission should center its efforts on two areas in particular,” the statement reads. “First, the Commission should take pro-active, concrete steps that will actually increase employment diversity,” like raising public awareness for equal employment opportunities, expand industry education and facilitate connections among job applicants and employers. “Second, the Commission should take steps to reduce unnecessary burdens on broadcasters, especially small stations,” specifically citing audits on stations regarding EEO rules.

“Rather than writing new rules, the Commission should join the NAB in rolling up our sleeves and making a real dent in the challenges broadcasters face in hiring the most diverse workforce possible.”

The FCC was required by the federal court in its upcoming quadrennial review of media ownership rules to consider the impact of its policies on broadcast diversity. Related, the U.S. Third Circuit Court recently vacated earlier deregulation efforts dealing with media ownership diversity by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, saying the commission failed to adequately gauged the impact.

Read the full comments from NAB here.