Looks like the Federal Communications Commission needs to fill in some spaces it left blank in a recent decision on its minority media ownership rules. Two organizations filed Petitions for Reconsideration earlier this week asking for some pretty basic clarifications. These would include telling broadcast media brokers exactly how to certify that they haven't been discriminating against minorities. And if the FCC wants to give breaks to minority firms seeking to buy radio and television stations, another group asks, why does it define the "eligible entities" that qualify for this help as small businesses (rather than, say, "minority firms")?

We're here to help?

In early March the FCC issued a lengthy Order designed to help woman- and minority-owned businesses buy more broadcast media. It was a hodgepodge of new and revised rules and initiatives. They included making it easier for minority firms to buy a "distress sale" license—a frequency whose owner has to face an FCC revocation hearing, encouraging banks to participate in Small Business Administration (SBA) guaranteed loan programs to help minority companies buy media, and smoothing the path for big companies to sell off to a minority firm pieces of a "grandfathered" cluster of stations—a combination of licenses bought prior to an FCC broadcast ownership rules change.

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