First Chance for New FCC to Deregulate – Abolition of Requirement to Maintain Public File of Letters from the Public About Broadcast Station Operations on January 31 Tentative Agenda

The FCC yesterday released its tentative agenda for its January meeting, to be held on January 31. This will be the first meeting of the post-Chairman Wheeler era, and the two Republican commissioners will be in the majority for the first time in 8 years. There is a single item on the tentative agenda – the abolition of the requirement that broadcasters maintain a paper public file, open for public inspection, containing letters and emails from the public about station operations. The order also deals with the obligation of cable operators to maintain information about their headends in their public file. We wrote in more detail about the FCC’s proposal to abolish this requirement, here. On January 31, we may see the first deregulatory actions of this new Republican-majority Commission. It will be worth watching to get our initial indication of how the regulatory treatment of broadcasters may change under the new Administration.