A black broadcasters group and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH coalition have called the Federal Communications Commission's ongoing media ownership proceeding so "grossly deficient at this point" that the two organizations cannot file a complete reply to previous comments yet.

Rainbow/PUSH and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) charge that the proceeding fails to address key minority broadcaster issues required by law and by an appeals court decision in 2004.

Their filing, dated January 17th, also casts doubt on the scope of media ownership studies commissioned by the FCC in late November.

"The brief descriptions of the studies provided by the Commission raise serious questions about whether the studies will cover all necessary subjects or go into the appropriate depth in their examination of those subjects," PUSH and NABOB write.

Last summer the FCC launched a new proceeding on its media ownership rules after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004 overturned its previous media ownership decisions. Once again up for revision are regulations limiting how many newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations an entity can own in one market, or in some cases nationally.

The filing came a day after the last day for replies to comments on the proceeding, although the agency has said that it will "continue to accept input after that time"—January 16th.

NABOB and PUSH charge that the FCC's Further Notice, which launched the latest proceeding, fails to address three key issues:

• It does not address various proposals for furthering minority ownership specifically cited in the Third Circuit's move to overturn most of the FCC's 2003 media ownership decisions (Prometheus v. FCC).
• The notice does not provide a definition of a "socially and economically disadvantaged business" (SDB). In Prometheus the Third Circuit expressed hope that by its next review of its media ownership rules the agency would have "the benefit of a stable definition of SDBs."
• It does not address the 1996 Telecommunications Act's Section 257, which calls for the FCC identify "market entry barriers for entrepreneurs and other small businesses in the provision and ownership of telecommunications services and information services."

Although the PUSH/NABOB filing acknowledges that several of the FCC's newly commissioned media ownership studies will focus on minority questions, it argues that, based on their brief descriptions, they "will not be extensive enough to provide useful information in this proceeding."

Taking a watch-and-wait attitude toward the studies, the groups say that they reserve the right to offer more comments "after the Commission more appropriately develops the record in this proceeding."

In addition to commenting on the proceeding, the PUSH/NABOB remarks also advocate broadcast ownership rule changes that the groups say will benefit minority broadcasters. These include the elimination of 6, 12, and 18 month waivers of the FCC's current broadcast ownership rules.

"The Commission's approach to granting waivers has been so exploited by the large group owners as to make the current ownership rules 'window dressing'," the filing charges.

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