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Broadcast Station Reminder:
Quarterly Issues Programs Lists due October 10
By DWT's Broadcast Group
[September 2007]
By October 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 July, August, and September dealing with
those issues. These reports 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.
Copyright © 2007, Davis Wright
Tremaine LLP.
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