The Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau has announced deadlines and other procedures for responding to the Bureau’s public notice reminding broadcasters and the public about preexisting law and FCC guidance pertaining to the “lowest unit charge” (LUC) requirements for political ads.
The Bureau issued guidance in March that appeared to expand the organizations that are eligible for the discounts on political ads, a policy that could cost broadcasters significant ad revenue.
The move quickly prompted pushback from broadcasters as well as Democrats, including an application for review filed by Democrats Sherrod Brown, Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper, and Kristen McDonald Rivet who are running for Congress.
The issue has also spilled into the Courts, with a Federal Appeals Court blocking the guidance and the Supreme Court restoring it in a Sept. 4 emergency stay.
Although the Media Bureau did not ask for public comment in issuing the guidance in March and has argued in recent months that it is not required to, the Bureau is now asking for comments to be filed by Sept. 25 and reply comments by Sept. 30.
The filing window is shorter than usual because of the looming midterm elections and the guidance’s potential impact on those election because it would provide discounts to a wider group of political organizations, Republicans have generally favored the expansion, which would require privately owned broadcasters to increase the subsidies they offer political groups, thus reducing their overall revenue, while Democrats have opposed it.
In a statement the FCC’s lone Democrat Commissioner Anna Gomez’s complained that “This comment period comes months after the Application for Review was filed, and only after the discount window already opened and ads are already running under the very policy it is asking the Commission to reverse, so the people most affected have already lost the chance to weigh in when it mattered. By opening a docket on the issue for the very first time, the Commission is confirming what I and the Fourth Circuit already said, that this process needed public input from the start and never should have gone this far without it. This is less like newfound transparency and more like damage control dressed up as due process, and a delay tactic dressed up as diligence.”
The full filing seeking “Comment on Application for Review of Public Notice Pertaining to Lowest Unit Charge Requirements” and related documents are available here.
