On behalf of all 50 State Broadcasters Associations, a letter was filed with the Commission on August 28 in response to the Commission’s request for comment on whether it should initiate a rule making proceeding to extend to radio station licensees the Commission’s current online public inspection file/political file regulations.
In response, the State Associations pointed out that several public interest organizations had filed a petition for rulemaking to extend those regulations only to pay-TV providers, and therefore the Commission should act on that petition first and evaluate its experiences under that expanded regime, and in particular the impact of such new filings on its current online filing system and resources. The State Associations emphasized the responsibility of the Commission to assess its resources and the adequacy of its online filing system on a measured, incremental basis before considering whether to risk overburdening its online filing system by requiring the online filing of potentially millions of pages of new documents from more than 15,000 radio stations.
