Localism in Broadcasting

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On July 1, 2004, the Federal Communications Commission issued a “Notice of Inquiry” (NOI) on localism in broadcasting. Since issuing this document, the FCC has been collecting comments from stakeholders and members of the public on localism in radio and television.

It’s essential that musicians, performers and citizens weigh on this topic by submitting a written comment to the FCC. To help musicians, recording artists, performers and citizens file comments that address the issues that are on the table, FMC and AFTRA have built this web tool that will help you to submit comments that help the FCC create regulatory policies that match musicians' and citizens' expectations. 

Note that the FCC's NOI asks for comments on a sizable range of topics associated with localism – everything from license renewal, to political speech, to TV network affliation rules, to serving under-represented communities, to payola and voicetracking. We suggest that anyone who wants to understand and comment on the full scope of this proceeding to download and read the actual NOI [PDF] and file a comment directly through the FCC's online comment filing system.

For those who would like some help filing a comment on the radio-specific parts of this proceeding, follow our guided tour that will give you:

1. a consise background on the FCC's history with localism, and the reasons why they launched this proceeding
   
2. a guided tour of the sections of the NOI that are most closely related to musicians, recording artists, performers, on-air talent and songwriters. Along with each issues we provide you with text boxes to craft your comments. When you get to the end of the tour, hit submit and you'll see your typed replies combined into one comment. After you've reviewed it, we will help you file it as a public comment at the FCC.

Click here to start!

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