Broadcast Advisory Bulletin
Broadcast Station Reminder:
Quarterly Issues Programs Lists due July 10
By DWT's Broadcast Group
[June 2007]
By July 10, 2007, all radio and television broadcast
stations, both commercial and noncommercial, must prepare and place
in their public inspection files a list of important issues facing
their communities, and the programs aired in the months of April,
May, and June dealing with those issues. These reports now comprise
the only legally required documents that demonstrate how a station
has met its public service obligations to its community of license
and service area. The failure to have a complete set of Quarterly
Issues Programs lists that were prepared and placed in the station's
public file at the proper time can lead to significant fines at
license renewal time. Moreover, the failure to produce and document
programs responsive to community needs could cause even greater
problems for a broadcast licensee.
Who must prepare Quarterly Issues Programs lists?
All stations, commercial and noncommercial, must prepare these
lists and place them in their public files within 10 days of the
end of each quarter. Unlike EEO reports, which are prepared on behalf
of the local station group, the Quarterly Issues Programs list is
station specific. Each station should have its own Quarterly Issues
Programs list, reporting on programming broadcast on that station,
which addresses issues of importance to the viewers or listeners
of that particular station.
Why are Quarterly Issues Programs lists significant?
In the 1980s, the FCC “deregulated” radio and television.
However, deregulation did not mean that broadcast stations were
free to ignore their public interest obligations. Instead, the FCC
determined that there did not need to be one set of rules for all
stations mandating how stations should determine what issues were
of importance to their communities, or a single set of rules mandating
how much time each station had to devote to issue-responsive programming.
The FCC also did away with the requirement that program logs be
retained as official records by broadcast stations.
However, the FCC did not eliminate the requirement that stations
produce programs that serve the public interest. Nor did the FCC
do away with the underlying requirements that stations determine
what issues are important to their community and produce programming
responsive to those issues. And, most importantly, the FCC required
that broadcasters document those efforts through quarterly issues-programs
lists.
Thus, the Quarterly Issues Programs list embodies the underlying
requirement of the ascertainment of community needs and the demonstration
that a station has met those needs. These lists are the only legally
mandated documents demonstrating how the station served the public
interest by serving the needs of the audience within its service
area. If a station’s service to its community was ever challenged,
the station would have to rely on the information contained in its
issues-programs lists to prove the extent of its service to the
public.
What happens if stations don’t have Quarterly Issues
Programs lists?
In the recent renewal cycle, broadcasters have been fined between
$4,000 and $10,000 for not having a complete set of timely Quarterly
Issues Programs lists in their public file. While the Commission
was less severe for stations missing only an isolated quarter—or
where there were isolated instances where the reports were prepared
late—the fines were imposed in cases where there were multiple
missing or late-filed reports. This was the case even if the missing
lists were from the early part of the eight-year license cycle.
Six years of perfect reports will not absolve a station from a year
or two where the station was not diligent.
More importantly, though isolated, there have been a few cases
where stations have had license renewal issues, going to the very
issue of whether a licensee deserved to have its license renewed,
where the lists were non-existent, or where the lists did not demonstrate
that the licensee had taken the time to determine the issues of
importance to its community, and to air programs responsive to those
issues. In these days of public interest groups complaining about
consolidation and the supposed lack of public interest programming
by broadcasters, there is always the fear that such complaints could
become more frequent in the future. Thus, the reports are very important
documents to establish a station’s service to the public.
What should be contained in the Quarterly Issues Programs lists?
In the FCC’s words, the Quarterly Issues Programs list should
reflect the “station’s most significant programming
treatment of community issues.” Thus, a station needs to identify
issues of importance to its community that it has in its good faith
determined to be of significance to its audience in that quarter,
and the programming it has broadcast responsive to those issues.
In the past, the FCC had mandated that 5 to 10 issues should be
identified each quarter. While the FCC has backed away from any
specified number of issues, the 5 to 10 range remains a good target
for stations to meet.
While broadcast stations are given a great deal of discretion in
deciding what programming to air to address the identified issues,
all stations must broadcast some programming that addresses each
of the identified issues. While the FCC does not mandate minimum
amounts of issue-responsive programming, the programming must be
sufficient, in the station’s judgment, to address the issues
of importance to its audience in a meaningful way. We would suggest
that the station document several different programs that are responsive
to each identified issue. As these Quarterly Issues Programs Lists
are the only legal proof of what a station has done to meet the
needs and interests of the community, we would urge stations to
be over inclusive when deciding the programs to list of the quarterly
report. It is always better to have too many programs responsive
to the community’s needs than too few.
While there is no mandated form for the Quarterly Issues Programs
lists, the FCC has said that a station must identify the specific
issue that each identified program addresses. Thus, it is not sufficient
to simply put into your file a list of issues, and a separate list
of your issue-responsive programming. Each program must be identified
by the issue it addresses. In one case, the FCC faulted a station
for relying exclusively on a network-generated list of issue-responsive
programming. The Commission said that, while network programming
can be responsive to local issues, a station must specify the local
issue each identified network program addressed. Unless the network
program addresses some identified local issue, it should not be
listed on the Quarterly Issues Programs list.
Each program must also be identified with the title of the program.
For each program the station must list the time and date on which
it was broadcast, and its duration. A brief description of the contents
of the program, sufficient to demonstrate how the program addresses
the identified issue, should also be included. An excerpt from a
sample Quarterly Issues Programs list is included as Attachment
A. This format can be adopted by stations to report on issues
of importance to your community, and programming you have broadcast
to meet those issues.
What programs are issue-responsive?
It is not just the traditional long-form public affairs discussions
that many stations run on Sunday morning that are sufficient to
address community needs. Instead, a station may determine that any
of its programming that seriously addresses an identified issue
is responsive to that issue. Thus, a report on a news program about
an issue would be responsive to that issue. Short segments, like
PSAs, can be issue-responsive, but should never alone be relied
on to address an issue. Some other longer programming should also
respond to the issue. Even entertainment programming can be issue-responsive,
if it addresses the identified issues in a serious manner. Thus,
a segment on a morning radio show, where the DJs discuss an important
local issue in a substantive or meaningful way, can be claimed as
issue-responsive. Similarly, a segment of an entertainment television
program can be identified as issue-responsive if it contains such
a serious discussion of a local issue.
It is best to include a mix of program types to address every issue.
While network programming can be issue-responsive, it is suggested
that stations also make every attempt to include locally produced
programs to meet each issue, as clearly a locally-produced program
is more likely to adequately address a local issue. Similarly, not
all issue-responsive programming should be buried in the early hours
of Sunday morning. Diverse broadcast times reaching a station’s
entire audience are best to demonstrate that the public was truly
served by a station’s programming.
How does the station identify the issues to be included
on the Quarterly Issues Programs list?
About 20 years ago, the FCC abolished the formal ascertainment
process that mandated interviews with a pre-established list of
community leaders, plus a general public survey. However, the FCC
did not abolish the requirement that stations ascertain the issues
of importance to the community. Instead, only the rigid methodology
was abandoned.
Stations should have replaced the Commission-mandated program with
their own program designed to determine the needs of their communities.
For instance, the employees of most stations are involved in a wide
array of civic and community activities–e.g. political, social,
religious and educational groups and activities. Stations should
have their employees regularly report back to the responsible station
management about issues raised at the meetings and activities of
such organizations, or in formal or informal discussions with other
members of those organizations.
Station management may also want to engage in some form of more
formal ascertainment by talking with community officials and those
involved in significant community organizations either in meetings
or calls designed specifically to identify issues, or when the opportunity
arises in other contexts (for instance, if such officials are at
the station for on-air appearances or other events). General community
sentiments on the issues of importance to the community can be gleaned
by calls, letters, or emails from the public.
Most importantly, a station should maintain documentation of the
feedback that it gets from these sources and the process it goes
through to sift through the information to determine which issues
it will address in its programming. This documentation should not
be placed in the public file, but should instead be maintained in
internal station records that can be produced as evidence of the
station’s efforts should these efforts ever be challenged
during license renewal or at some other time.
The station should be gathering this information throughout the
quarter, and should plan the issue-responsive programming around
the issues it is determining are important to the community. The
station is supposed to be designing programming to address community
needs that it has identified, not identifying issues based solely
on programming that has already aired.
Stations should also assure that they are serving the needs of
their community of license. While stations have service obligations
to their entire service areas, their primary public service obligation
is to their city of license. Thus, stations that may be licensed
to outlying suburban communities, while competing for listeners
and advertisers in a major metropolitan area, should remember their
city of license when compiling the list of issues and programs responsive
to those issues. Make sure that issues relevant to your city of
license have been identified, and that specific programs address
issues and events in that city.
How long should the documentation be retained?
The Commission requires that all Quarterly Issues Programs lists
be maintained for the entire renewal period, and until the license
renewal application based on those reports is granted. Internal
documentation on the steps taken by the station to identify local
issues should be retained for the same period.
What happens if a report is not completed on time?
If a Report is not completed on time, the station should reconstruct
the information and place it into the public file, dated as of the
date on which it was actually completed. As the document is a legally
required public document, the public file should be clear that the
late-filing took place so that no one can accuse the station of
fabricating or back-dating these legal documents.
Special Rules for Class A TV Stations
In addition to the Quarterly Issues Programs lists discussed above,
the FCC requires that Class A TV stations maintain in their public
files sufficient information to demonstrate their continuing eligibility
for Class A status–e.g. that they have broadcast three hours
per week of local programming, broadcast 18-hours a day, and otherwise
observed the rules that apply to full-power TV stations. While the
FCC has not mandated that this report be done quarterly, the preparation
of the Quarterly Issues Programs lists would seem to provide a good
opportunity to prepare such documentation.
For more information, please contact:
This advisory is a
publication of the Broadcast Group of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
Our purpose in publishing this advisory is to inform our clients
and friends of recent developments in the broadcasting industry.
It is not intended, nor should it be used, as a substitute for specific
legal advice as legal counsel may only be given in response to inquiries
regarding particular situations. Attorney Advertising. Prior results
do not guarantee a similar outcome. Thank you.
Copyright © 2007, Davis Wright Tremaine
LLP.
return to broadcast group main page |
