FCC Acepting Public Comments On 'Lowest Unit Charges'

The FCC Media Bureau has set Friday Sept. 25 as the deadline for comments — and Wednesday Sept. 30 for replies — on its March guidance expanding which groups qualify for “lowest unit charge” discounts on political ads.

The short window is tied to the approaching midterms. The Bureau says the guidance could affect those elections by extending broadcast ad discounts to a wider set of political organizations. Republicans have generally supported the expansion; Democrats have opposed it, arguing it would force privately owned stations to deepen subsidies and lose revenue.

The March guidance was issued without a public-comment period. The Bureau has maintained it was not required to seek comment then, but it is soliciting comments now. Broadcasters and Democrats quickly challenged the policy. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Jon Ossoff and congressional candidates Roy Cooper and Kristen McDonald Rivet filed an application for review.

Anna Gomez

The dispute moved to court. A federal appeals court blocked the guidance; the Supreme Court restored it on Sept. 4 with an emergency stay.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s lone Democrat, criticized the timing.  “This comment period comes months after the Application for Review was filed, and only after the discount window already opened and ads are already running under the very policy it is asking the Commission to reverse, so the people most affected have already lost the chance to weigh in when it mattered,” she said. “By opening a docket on the issue for the very first time, the Commission is confirming what I and the Fourth Circuit already said, that this process needed public input from the start and never should have gone this far without it. This is less like newfound transparency and more like damage control dressed up as due process, and a delay tactic dressed up as diligence.”

The Media Bureau’s public notice reminds stations and the public of preexisting law and FCC rules on lowest-unit-charge requirements for political advertising and sets the procedures for responding.