Under FCC rules, stations must include non-discrimination provisions in all sales contracts. As part of the license renewal applications, stations are required to certify that they have included non-discrimination provisions in their sales contracts. The FCC’s Media Bureau recently raised this issue in renewing the licenses of three stations, including two Class A stations. The stations indicated they could not make such a certification on their renewal application. Moreover, the stations could not provide an explanation as to why they could not do so. However, the station noted in an attachment that it did not discriminate with respect to advertising sales and would include a non-discrimination provision in its sales agreements going forward. Nonetheless, the Media Bureau admonished the stations.
With respect to the full-service station, the Media Bureau noted that continued failure could result in fines:
“While the Licensee certified “No” in its Application, there has been no evidence presented to the Commission that the Licensee or the Station has engaged in discriminatory behavior with regards to its advertising. We therefore conclude that the Liceensee’s failure to include non-discrimination clauses in the Station’s advertising sales agreements does not warrant a monetary forfeiture. However, future failures to include non-discrimination clauses in advertising sales agreements may result in more severe sanction, including the assessment of monetary forfeiture.”
As for the Class A stations, the Bureau noted that the failure to include non-discrimination provisions could also result in a downgrade to LPTV status.
“We therefore conclude that the Licensee’s failure to include non-discrimination clauses in the Station’s advertising sales agreements does not warrant a monetary forfeiture. However, future failures to include non-discrimination clauses in advertising sales agreements may result in more severe sanction, including the assessment of monetary forfeiture or downgrade to low power television status.”
Accordingly, commercial stations, including Class A stations, must make sure their sales contracts have non-discrimination provisions.
You can see a more detailed discussion of this issue by noted communications attorney David Oxenford here.