This reader fails to find any Virtue at all in the FCC’s new self-funding scheme.
Fee-lonious FCC fund grab?
In your “Fee For All” article in today’s RBR and TVBR you ask broadcasters to start your lawyers on the rulemaking which will re-examine how the FCC assesses annual regulatory fees. That got me started. In the notice, the FCC says that in 1995, 18.04% of the agency’s expenses were spent regulating broadcast services. By 2007, that figure had dropped to 13.64%.Fee-lonious FCC fund grab?
Why, then, have this year’s annual regulatory fees have gone up so dramatically? In some cases, such as FM Class B stations in markets with population up to 500,000, or UHF below-100 markets, the increase over last year is greater than 14%. The FCC’s budget, however, increased 7.5%. Perhaps broadcasters should be asking the FCC to refund past years when broadcasters have been paying more than their fair share of the agency’s operating costs.Fee-lonious FCC fund grab?
Melodie Virtue
Garvey Schubert Barer
