[BC] Public File proceeding

[Larry Fuss]

> Useless paperwoirk???!!

The Public & Broadcasting Manual is useless and out of date.  The Issues &
Programs lists are a farce.
So tell me, what in the file actually serves a useful purpose?  The
ownership report? It's available
online.  The employment report? Same.  Letters from the public? Yea, right.

> FIRST, we allow stations to move out of their city of license without as
much
as a mail stop there. (If you think that 'toll free' numbers cut it, try
this
- pick 10 stations at random that aren't in their city of license and then
try
to find their 'free' numbers. I'll give you 4:1 odds you can't find half of
them!).

But what does that have to do with the Public File?  Why not just enforce
that rule?

> THEN we virtually get rid of all news and public affairs programming.

How does maintaining a Public File change that?

> NOW you want to eliminate the last connection to the PUBLIC - where at
least
the public can come and SEE what said station ISN'T doing for them.

What public?  I've been in radio for 34 years.  In that entire period of
time, the
only person who ever came to one of my stations wanting to see the Public
File, other
than an FCC inspector, was my ex-wife.  She thought there was going to be
financial
information in there that she could use against me.  (Everybody knows that
all radio
station owners are just rolling in money, right?)

On the other hand, I've been to many stations over the years and asked to
see their
Public Files.  Most were a joke.  Very few had all the required material,
and most 
had lots of junk that shouldn't have been in there at all, including
privileged communications
from their FCC attorneys, lists of contest winners, copies of every PSA they
ever aired,
instruction manuals for cart machines, maintenance records for the station
van, etc.  It
really is a joke.

> C'mon guys! This is Bull**it!

Yes, it really is.  As I said before, stations should be held accountable to
certain rules.
I still hear stations, even in big markets, that don't seem to understand
what constitutes
a legal ID.  I observe AM stations operating at night with day power and/or
pattern.  And
as you mentioned above, there are stations far from the city-of-license with
no published
phone number in the COL.  Enforce THOSE rules rather than put stations
through a useless
paperwork exercise.

Larry Fuss