SEPARATE STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER 
MICHAEL J. COPPS, APPROVING
Re:  Standardized and Enhanced Disclosure Requirements for Television Broadcast 
Licensee Public Interest Obligations & Extension of the Filing Requirement For 
Children’s Television Programming Report (FCC Form 398), Report and Order and 
FNPRM. 
 This is a good step forward. While it doesn’t deliver the real kind of public 
interest standards that I think the American people would like to have for those who 
manage the public’s airwaves, it will provide significantly more information than we 
presently have to inform us all about what and how broadcasters are doing. So if we ever 
get serious about having an honest-to-goodness licensing and re-licensing regime around 
here—and I intend to keep pushing hard for that—we will have much better data on 
which to make those decisions.
 For decades, representatives of the public interest community have recognized the 
importance of requiring enhanced disclosure by broadcasters. Thanks in large part to the 
pioneering scholarship and advocacy of these tireless individuals, it has been widely 
accepted for some time that broadcasters have an obligation to give the American people 
a much better picture of how the people’s airwaves are being used. The Advisory 
Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters agreed back 
in the late 1990s that there should be enhanced disclosure requirements for broadcasters.
 So today’s item is long overdue. But it is still very welcome. Requiring stations 
all across the country to post standardized information about programming aired in 
response to issues facing local communities will be an enormous service to us all. It 
means that every American citizen will have the tools necessary to see whether or not 
local broadcasters are living up to their end of the bargain to serve the public interest in 
return for free use of the people’s property.
 
 I fear many of us may be quite troubled by what we learn. To take one example, 
researchers at the University of Southern California documented that, in the 30 days 
before the last Presidential election, only around 8 percent of local newscasts contained 
any local electoral coverage, including coverage of races for the U.S. House of 
Representatives. This is a shocking conclusion, with enormous relevance for 
contemporary policy debates. In order to reach this important conclusion, researchers 
had to watch over 2,000 hours of newscasts from markets all across the country.
Needless to say, few scholars have the resources to conduct this type of study. Today’s 
item, however, will allow researchers to conduct similar analyses in a tiny fraction of the 
time. 
 Even more important than the impact on program analysis, today’s decision will 
also empower concerned and politically active citizens to become involved in the fight 
for a better and more democratic media environment. Every American citizen will be 
able to look up, on the Internet, the programs aired by his or her local station in the 
discharge of its public interest obligations. Every citizen will be able to form an 
independent opinion about whether that station is doing enough to justify its continued 
use of the public airwaves. And if citizens come to believe that a station is not holding 
up its end of the bargain, they can petition the FCC not to renew that station’s license.
Here we come full circle, of course, because that gets us right back to the need to put in 
place a credible system that makes re-licensing contingent on a station’s actual 
performance in serving the public interest. Our mantra should be: no public interest 
performance, no license.
 So what we do here today will be vindicated by what we do about public interest 
obligations more expansively. For today, I commend the Chairman for bringing us this 
important item, and I thank my colleagues for working with me to make it even stronger.
I also want to recognize the sterling work done by the public interest community in 
helping us get where we are today. While there are some aspects of the Order that could 
still be improved upon, this is a solid step in the right direction. Many thanks also to the 
Bureau for its hard work.