The Sunlight Foundation, along with Common Cause and the Campaign Legal Center, have filed with the FCC complaints against 18 TV stations claiming that these stations violated the FCC’s sponsorship identification rules by not identifying former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg as the true sponsor of issue ads bought by the Independence USA political… Continue Reading
A bill introduced in the House of Representatives last week proposes that the FCC be required to amend its sponsorship identification rules to require not just the name of the sponsor of an ad addressing “a controversial issue of public importance,” but also the names of any “significant donors” to the sponsor. This bill is… Continue Reading
In the waning days of 2014 we reported on the release of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in which the Commission proposed to expand the online public inspection requirement to include radio broadcasters, cable operators and satellite broadcast s...
NPRM would include broadcast radio, cable, satellite providers in FCC-maintained online system. Back in July – that would be less than six months ago – three public interest groups asked the Commission to revise its rules to require cable T...
Even though the election is over, political broadcasting issues have not stopped. Yesterday, the same groups (the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, and the Sunlight Foundation) that had previously objected to the sponsorship identification of issue ads funded by PACs with a limited donor base have struck again. This time, they have filed a complaint with … Continue Reading
Just a month ago, the FCC denied complaints alleging that Washington DC TV stations had not adequately identified the true sponsor of political ads sponsored by a political action committee. When that decision came down – denied on procedural grounds by the Commission – we warned that it opened the door to more complaints in … Continue Reading
Bureau tosses two complaints alleging inadequate sponsorship IDs – but that may not be good news in the long run. Several months ago we reported on complaints filed against a dozen or so TV stations with respect to the stations’ alleged fai...