MMTC Pushes for Incubators
The FCC should issue an expedited further rulemaking notice on using incubator programs to create more ownership diversity in broadcasting, said the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) in a filing in docket 14-50. “This relatively noncontroversial proposal has…
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been pending in seven dockets for 27 years,” said MMTC. “It presents a genuine opportunity to increase the diversity of voices over the airwaves.” Incubators wouldn’t be hard for the FCC to oversee, MMTC said. An incubator program should be run with transparency, and the FCC should be “highly skeptical of arrangements modeled after” shared services agreements and joint sales agreements “posing as incubators,” MMTC said. “These arrangements sometimes come with options built in that run only in the direction of the larger company having the right to take out the minority ‘owner’ and seldom for actual value,” MMTC said. Local marketing agreements are a better arrangement for an incubator system, MMTC said. MMTC has used LMAs in the past as successful incubators, by installing a minority entrepreneur as a station operator and then eventually selling the station to them “at a significant discount below market value,” providing “equity and a head start,” the filing said.