All at once the FCC has issued its “Quarterly Report of Informal Consumer Inquiries and Complaints” for the final three quarters of 2010. Complaints in the top four categories were down in Q2 and Q3 of 2010, but up in Q4.
As usual, the bulk of the complaints regarding radio and television involved programming issues. The FCC didn’t spell out how many pertained to alleged indecency, nor does it break out how many were the result of organized campaigns generating piles of virtually identical complaints.
Radio and TV complaints dropped more than 80% in Q2 of 2010 to only 25,162. The FCC noted that many of the 132,416 complaints in Q1 had been indecency complaints regarding two particular programs. Radio and TV complaints dropped even more dramatically in Q3 of last year, down 89% to only 2,611. But then radio and TV complaints increased 19% in Q4 of 2010 to 3,116.
RBR-TVBR observation: Have you ever wondered whether any other part of the FCC is responsible for more complaints than broadcasting? Oh yes. Both wireless telecommunications (cell phones) and wireline telecommunications (landlines) account for many, many more complaints, including such areas as billing, do-not-call list violations and unsolicited faxes.
