U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday (Sept. 15) rolled out recommendations to the commission’s members that would establish “strong and clear disclosure requirements” for television and radio content sponsored or provided by foreign governments.
Pai was quoted in the FCC’s statement as saying, “U.S. television viewers and radio listeners have a right to know that a foreign government is behind the programming they consume. Given that some stations’ content comes from countries like China and Russia, it’s time to update our rules and bring these practices into greater light. I hope my colleagues will move quickly to approve this proposal so that we can help keep the American public informed when they watch or listen to foreign government propaganda.”
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeks to revise the current FCC’s provisions regarding sponsorship. The new rules would require that if a foreign entity pays a radio or television station, directly or indirectly, to broadcast content, or if the programming is given away free of charge by such an entity to induce the station to broadcast the content, the station must make a specific disclosure at the time of broadcast.
The FCC currently has a number of disclosure rules regarding sponsorship, but does not specifically require when and how sponsorship by foreign governments is disclosed to the public. These existing rules date back to the Broadcasting Act of 1927, which predates the creation of the FCC agency and was intended to prohibit stations from passing off advertisements as program content, and the FCC said in a statement Tuesday that if the new rules introduced by Pai are eventually implemented, it “will further the critical transparency goals and apply them to foreign governments and political parties and their agents. “.
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