Opinion ID: 338303
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Responsiveness of Programming to Community Needs

Text: 12 Appellants want this court to require the Commission to use quantitative standards or evaluations in measuring past programming adequacy. This is an area in which qualitative evaluations are suspect as intrusions into the broadcaster's First Amendment freedoms but in which the Commission nevertheless has an obligation to assure operation in the public interest. 13 Appellants stress the need for a better measure of performance than the current Commission method requiring a licensee to identify community problems, and to explore an undefined number of those problems through undefined types of public interest and news programming. We have not been insensitive to the weaknesses in the Commission's ascertainment process. In Stone v. FCC, we noted that failure to include such non-problem areas of interest as family life, art, and social interaction may leave out public needs that are often much more important in both everyday life and in media programming than the problems of a community. 12 Disclosure of financial information might be helpful as a means of gauging public interest programming, but we cannot say that the Commission is required as a matter of law to make such information available. 14 Appellant's second argument is that public interest programming that is allocated in only a minuscule amount to serving the needs of a 40% minority community is prima facie inconsistent with the public interest. However, this argument was never clearly articulated to the Commission in the first instance or in a petition for rehearing.
15 The FCC uses financial information in its regulatory activities. It requires that a station not only file an annual financial statement describing operating expenses on Form 324, but also disclose its balance sheet to the public at renewal time. 16 The Commission considers revenue adequacy and reinvestment relevant when it is alleged that the addition of a new station to a market area will threaten an overall reduction in public interest programming, or when it is considering approving a change in ownership. See Carroll Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 103 U.S.App.D.C. 346, 258 F.2d 440 (1958); Wichita-Hutchinson Co., Inc., 19 FCC 2d 433, reconsidered in part, 20 F.C.C. 2d 584, transfer denied, 20 F.C.C. 2d 951 (1969). But when the Commission is considering the renewal of an application and no opposing group is seeking that license, the issue is not which applicant or how many licensees will best serve the public interest. The Commission simply determines whether the licensee has operated in the public interest in the past, and whether its proposed programming makes it likely to operate in the public interest in the future. 13 Once that determination is made, the Commission does not try to evaluate whether the licensee could have done a better job of operating in the public interest. The Commission assures itself that the station has carried out a study that adequately ascertains the local community's perceived problems, and that the station has carried programming responsive to some of the identified problems. Since there are no standards about how much programming is enough to meet those problems or about how many of the identified problems have to be dealt with in the scheduled programming, both licensees and those groups seeking to make them more responsive to the public are understandably uncertain about the Commission's rather amorphous expectations. Although it may not be the most desirable form of regulation, it is permissible for the Commission to look to and to evaluate the adequacy of the finished product that it regulates the station's programming rather than to adopt a regulatory approach inquiring into the financial resources a licensee devotes to serving the public interest. 17 The Commission does provide by rule 14 for the release of confidential financial information upon a persuasive showing that the financial information is a necessary link in a chain of evidence that will resolve the public-interest issue, and not merely where there is a chance it might be helpful. Sioux Empire Broadcasting Co., 10 F.C.C.2d 132, 134 (1967). 15 Even if Alianza had made a prima facie showing that KOB-TV had not operated in the public interest, however, the station's financial ability to provide public interest programming would not now be a factor considered by the Commission in determining whether the station had operated in the public interest. Thus Alianza could not make a persuasive showing that the financial information was a necessary link in a chain of evidence, or even material. 16 18 In refusing Alianza access to KOB-TV's financial information, the Commission also noted that the change in substantive policy urged by Alianza would be better considered through a rulemaking proceeding. Since disclosure or consideration of financial information is not required as a matter of law in Commission evaluation of public interest programming, it is within the Commission's discretion to choose a procedural format it deems appropriate for the development of substantive policy. See NLRB v. Bell Aerospace Co., 416 U.S. 267, 94 S.Ct. 1757, 40 L.Ed.2d 134 (1974). 19
20 Working with the Commission's existing ascertainment process, Alianza asserts on appeal that the maximum of 6 hours and 55 minutes identified by the Commission as a year's KOB-TV programming responsive to minority community problems is a prima facie failure to meet the public interest where the minority comprises 40% of the public being served. Although we have held in Stone and Columbus Broadcasting Coalition, supra, that programming is a matter largely in the discretion of the licensee and is not to be measured by a simple percentage test, we are troubled by appellants' contentions, and by the issue whether the minimal amount of public interest programs serving the needs of a 40% minority does not create a disparity so significant as to amount to a difference in kind rather than in degree. Excluding news shows, KOB-TV spent a maximum of 6%, and a minimum of 2% of its public interest programming dealing with problems of interest to the Mexican-American community. 17 The Commission could find that such a gross disparity in allocation of programming time indicates a broadcaster's failure to serve his community's needs. Such a finding could suffice to deny renewal as a matter of law, or to establish a prima facie case that the broadcaster was not acting in the public interest and that a hearing was required. There would have been a particularly appropriate scope for that approach in this case, where KOB-TV's demonstration that its 1968-71 programming met community needs was based on an ascertainment study done for its 1971-74 prospective programming. 18 21 However, Alianza's petition to deny renewal did not specifically urge the disparity in allocation of public interest programming time to the needs of the Mexican-American community as a ground for denial. Nor did it criticize KOB's reliance on a 1971 ascertainment study to validate its 1968-71 programming. 19 Its primary thrust, identified on a fair reading of its petition by the Commission, was rather the failure of KOB-TV to address programming to the questions of principal concern to Alianza racial discrimination and land grants. Alianza also alleged in a broad, conclusory way that the overall level of public interest programming was insufficient. Raising the explicitly quantitative argument 20 for the first time before this court 21 that a prima facie case of failure to serve the public interest is made out by the absolute paucity of programs devoted to Mexican-American problems does violence, however, to the scheme of agency-court partnership 22 contemplated by the Communications Act. The Commission must be given a fair opportunity to pass on a novel legal or factual argument, either initially or on a petition for reconsideration, before it can be brought before a reviewing court. 23 Otherwise, the reviewing court would in effect be exercising primary jurisdiction over any issue not raised in front of the agency. We cannot say that the quantitative arguments made by Alianza before us were fairly raised in the case shaped by Alianza before the FCC; 24 the grist was there, but nothing was made of it. The identification of this problem required some digging into the record to bring matters into focus. Hence, we cannot presume that the matter was deliberately considered by the FCC. In the circumstances, we are foreclosed from evaluating this quantitative claim. 22 Putting aside the quantitative sufficiency issue, the Commission scrutinized KOB's total public interest programming to find that it served the public interest, and that Mexican-American interests were served by enumerated programs, as well as by news broadcasts dealing with racial discrimination and the land grant question. 25 The Commission also properly emphasized that the station need not address every problem it identifies through its ascertainment studies. We cannot say that this approach was erroneous as a matter of law, or condemn the Commission's conclusion that even assuming the truth of Alianza's allegations, a prima facie case for denial of renewal was not established. 23 B. EmploymentAlianza maintains that KOB-TV has failed to comply with the Commission's equal employment opportunity rules, 47 C.F.R. 73.680 (1975). However, the Commission found that KOB-TV had adopted an equal employment opportunity program and that the long-term trend in KOB-TV minority employment confirms that finding. Minority employment increased from 4.5% in 1971 to 17.3% in 1973, and their representation has not been concentrated in the lower paying jobs. In this setting, the law does not impose a requirement that the percentage of minority employees correspond to the percentage of minorities in the population of the community as a whole. We see no reason to disturb the Commission's findings. 24 Affirmed.