Federal Communications Commission FCC 17-42
DISSENTING STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONERMIGNON L. CLYBURN
Re: Promoting Diversification of Ownership in the Broadcasting Services; Amendment of Part 1 of the 
Commission’s Rules, Concerning Practice and Procedure, Amendment of CORES Registration 
System, Order on Reconsideration, MB Docket No. 07-294
This Administration has prided itself on improving transparency and ensuring that the actions 
taken by the Commission are data driven. I support these goals. But by eliminating a noncommercial 
educational (NCE) broadcasters obligation to provide the Commission with adequate information about 
its officers or governing board members, today’s Order on Reconsideration achieves neither. What it will 
do, is make it harder for us to gather the necessary data on the broadcast media landscape that the Third 
Circuit and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) have said are so important. 
Let me explain. In 2008, the GAO noted that “more accurate, complete, and reliable [broadcast 
ownership] data would allow FCC to better assess the impact of its rules and regulations and allow the 
Congress to make more informed legislative decisions.” The report went on to recommend that the “FCC 
take steps to improve the reliability and accessibility of its data on the gender, race, and ethnicity of 
broadcast outlet owners.” 
This Order on Reconsideration sends us in the opposite direction, at a time in which the Third 
Circuit has repeatedly faulted the FCC for not obtaining the data it needs to improve the state of minority 
and female broadcast ownership. So why is this data so important? Take for example a fictitious “Pastor 
John Smith.” A Google search of Pastor John Smith produces 18,600 results. Without a requirement to 
submit a unique identifier, how does the Commission determine whether the Pastor John Smith who is on 
the board of a noncommercial station in Charleston, South Carolina, is the same as the one in Fargo, 
North Dakota? Knowing this information informs the Commission and the public whether we are talking 
about an individual with involvement in a single station or one that is making programming decisions 
across a dozen or more stations. 
But noncommercial stations are fundamentally different than commercial stations, some might 
say, because board members have no equity stake and are not actual owners. Yet the GAO’s report 
specifically affirmed that data from NCE stations is needed to have a comprehensive picture of ownership 
diversity, including representation from women and minorities. This view was reaffirmed in the 
Commission’s 2016 323 and 323-E Order, which concluded “that the Commission’s analysis with regard 
to the collection of data from commercial stations is equally applicable in the NCE context. NCE stations 
hold Commission licenses, as do commercial licensees. Their programming impacts local communities.” 
Furthermore, despite suggestions to the contrary, many board members of NCE stations are in fact 
involved in either day-to-day operation of the station and/or programming decisions. To ensure 
accountability on the public airwaves, the American people have a right to know who these board 
members are.
The Commission’s 2016 Order stated that “Nothing in the statute distinguishes the 
noncommercial nature of any segment of a service as exempting it from the overall statutory mandates” 
which leads me to my final concern. If the statute does not distinguish between the two types of stations, 
will this not lead to commercial stations asking for the same relief? Once again, the Commission and the 
American people deserve access to this information, whether it involves a commercial or a 
noncommercial station using the public airwaves.
For all of the reasons I have stated, I respectfully dissent. Despite my disagreement, I thank the 
Media Bureau staff for their work on this item.