STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONER ROBERT M. MCDOWELL
Re: Promoting Diversification of Ownership in the Broadcasting Services, et al. (MB Docket Nos. 
07-294, 06-121, 02-277, 01-235, 01-317, 00-244 and 04-228).
In considering the important issues we decide today, we explore a vexing question:  what can the 
FCC do to promote ownership among people of color and women?  Many positive and constructive ideas 
before the Commission may be hobbled by Supreme Court rulings regarding race-specific remedies on 
one side, and a lack of statutory authority for doing much more on the other side.  Like it or not, whatever 
the Commission does must withstand constitutional muster to succeed.  What we have done in this Order 
is to focus on the possible -- and the legally sustainable. While perhaps imperfect and incomplete, I hope 
the ideas we adopt today will increase ownership of traditional media properties by women and people of 
color.  
At the outset, we face the difficult constitutional question of how to define the groups eligible for 
relief under the proposals we adopt.  Given the Supreme Court’s decision in Adarand v. Pena, which 
prohibits distinctions based on race, in today’s Order, we define these “eligible entities” as any entity that 
would qualify as a small business, under the Small Business Administration standards for industry 
grouping, based on revenue.  This means that television stations with no more than $13 million in annual 
receipts and radio stations with no more than $6.5 million in annual receipts are eligible entities.  
We have heard from many who are concerned that this definition will not benefit minority and 
women-owned broadcasters.  I disagree.  As the order explains, concerns that our definition of eligible 
entities would be regressive are based on flawed calculations.  Large companies controlling smaller 
subsidiaries are not included in our definition, despite allegations to the contrary.  Our definition does not 
dilute the ownership position of women and people of color, as some have suggested.  Rather, the 
position of those most in need have been enhanced.  The definition we adopt today, although not perfect, 
is the best option we have before us now.  The record does not contain, nor has the Commission been able 
to develop, any race-conscious definition of a socially and economically disadvantaged business that 
would pass constitutional muster.  The “full file review system” suggested by some parties, while 
intriguing and potentially beneficial, would be too vague a standard as it is written currently and
extremely difficult to administer or defend on appeal.  However, we invite comment on alternative 
definitions of an eligible entity.  
I also beseech Congress to give us more statutory authority to help this situation, especially the 
hardest challenge which lies at the beginning of the process: gaining access to capital.  But I guess we’ll 
have to wait for that.
I thank our Diversity Committee and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council for 
their tireless work developing and advocating these measures.  I hope that the “small steps” measures we 
adopt today will spur the education, investment and economic incentives necessary to improve the state of 
diversity in broadcast ownership.  I look forward continuing to work with you toward the day when we 
are free to bound ahead more boldly.
I thank the Chairman for his leadership on this issue and thank the Bureau for their hard work, 
into the wee hours, on this Order.