Inevitable Change

The FCC has been flooded with comments from broadcasters and others in its Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding, and we’re watching closely to see how they move forward given that many requests for rule elimination or modification will require different approaches.  One thing is clear – there are enough regulations that no longer make sense or produce their intended purpose or outcome, so change is inevitable. So, the only real questions that remain are which rules will change or be eliminated and how fast that will occur.

On the change front, the FCC’s Media Bureau is apparently a prime candidate.  FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington recently wrote an article published in the Daily Caller that called for staff reductions in the Media Bureau and changes to the FCC’s licensing systems. Simington said the Commission was “entangled by outdated practices that burden consumers, broadcasters, and taxpayers alike.” Simington and his new Chief of Staff Gavin Wax pointed to the Media Bureau as “overstaffed” with too many resources dedicated to traditional radio and TV broadcasters whose relevance is contracting in their view.

The Simington/Wax broadside didn’t stop there.  They criticized the Media Bureau’s regulatory approach, claiming that “rather than confining itself to its core statutory mission of overseeing physical transmission infrastructure, the Bureau has strayed into content regulation and competition policy, particularly in areas that arguably fall outside the FCC’s legal mandate.”  They also claim that enforcement is not politically neutral.  Ultimately, they suggest that Media Bureau staffers should get moved to other Bureaus that are struggling with staffing such as the new Space Bureau.

As for the FCC’s licensing systems, Simington and Wax called for automated workflows for non-contentious licenses, and abandonment of the current model requiring manual processing of all applications.  Simplified application processing is not a new subject at the FCC, and we’re in favor of any changes to application processing that remove the subtle staff “requirements that often change from staffer to staffer or from one application to another.