The FCC has released its fifth report on broadcast ownership, according to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, and there is some slight improvement in the number of women and minority-owned stations, but the emphasis is on the "slight."
The number of women who owned full-power TV stations in 2019, the latest year for which the FCC has figures, was up from 73 to 77, but Starks points out that means women own only 5.6% of the total of 1,369 full power TVs.
The number of African American-owned TV stations was up from a dozen in the previous report (2017 figures) to 18 in 2019, or what Starks called an "anemic" 1%. But media diversity for Asian Americans went in the other direction, from nine full-power stations in 2017 to only 4 in 2019.
"The numbers don’t lie," said Starks, "we must ensure that ownership at broadcast stations better reflects the rich diversity of the communities that they serve."
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Starks said one way to do that would be to support legislation, the Expanding Broadcast Opportunities Act of 2021, introduced by Rep. G.K Butterfield (D-N.C.), which would revive the FCC's minority tax certificate program, which gives media companies a tax break for selling broadcast properties to women and minorities.
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) has also recently introduced HR 5056, the MVPD Tax Credit Program, which would give a tax credit to MVPDs and their over-the-top streaming counterparts for carrying diverse, including minority targeted, independent programming.
