Opinion ID: 658298
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Information

Text: 40 According to the Commission, on-site owners have better sources of information than [304 U.S.App.D.C. 110] absentee owners. By virtue of their presence at the station, the Commission asserts, integrated owners necessarily have been in a better position than absentee owners to learn that the station is violating Commission rules or that people have asked the station to address particular community needs. For example, integrated owners are more likely than absentee owners to follow station correspondence or to hear comments by station visitors. Second Remand Order, 8 F.C.C.Rec. at 1676 p 15. 41 Galaxy labels sheer myth the notion that people throng like pilgrims to present their views in person at the nearest broadcast studio. Reply Brief of Petitioner Galaxy Communications, Inc. at 4. The Commission cites no evidence that station visitors are a major source of information for broadcasters, and the idea seems implausible. 42 Correspondence may be a more likely source of information about community needs than station visitors. But the Commission evidently does not take its own argument very seriously, for it insists that owner-managers spend at least 20 hours a week at the station in order to receive any integration credit. It is hard to see why picking up the week's influx should take more than a few minutes, and, even assuming an avalanche of mail and only semi-competent staff work, why mastering its content should take more than a few hours. 43 Familiarity with a community seems much more likely than station visitors or correspondence to make one aware of community needs. But even long-time local residence generates at most a qualitative enhancement of an applicant's integration credit.