Reports about the man that President-elect Barack Obama is expected to choose to manage the transition at the Federal Communications Commission emphasize his past role as a lobbyist and FCC Commissioner. But the truth is that Henry Rivera has never really left the FCC, having stayed active in its matrix of advisory groups from the 1980s right up to the present. And Rivera's agenda is no secret: figuring out ways to help minorities get a bigger slice of the telecommunications and broadcast media pie.

In fact, as Chair of the Commission's Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age, Rivera just sent the agency a set of recommendations on how to further this goal. It suggests three ways to enhance "the ability of minorities and women to participate in telecommunications and related industries."

Dated October 28, the report may be a preview of a major aspect of the Obama FCC agenda.

Social disadvantages

The challenge for regulators who want to make it easier for women and minorities to own more telecom licenses and businesses is how to create programs that don't run afoul of judicial hostility to diversity plans. One of the reforms that various groups have been lobbying for is a "socially and economically disadvantaged businesses" (SDB) classification, in which minority-led "eligible entities" would receive various preferences and breaks during media sales and spectrum auctions, among other transactions.

The FCC has been dropping the ball on this idea for years; it keeps coming up and disappearing in proceedings. Kevin Martin's FCC has been skittish about it too. In an Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking approved in December, the Commission extended various Small Business Administration style breaks to smaller telecom firms. But the NOPR cited various "race conscious" government minority business programs that have been struck down by the courts. The Order asked for feedback on how the SDB classification could be "narrowly tailored" to protect it from legal smackdowns.

Rivera's list of recommendations favors the SDB idea, but appears to concede that research work needs to be done to to put the program on a solid legal foundation. So the Committee suggests that, until a definition is worked out, the FCC should opt for a "full file review" approach to minority businesses support programs. The full file approach takes a "race neutral" approach to applicants, but takes note of hurdles that a business owner has overcome. The Commission's NOPR mentions some hypothetical examples of potentially successful full file review applicants:

"an applicant injured in military service in Iraq who later completed a leadership training program; a rural applicant who put herself through college and successfully ran a previously-bankrupt AM station; and a Spanish language radio company owner who succeeded despite advertiser resistance to program language and format"

Rivera's document strongly endorses this concept. "Because of its race-neutrality, an FFR-based program can be implemented in the short-term," the Advisory Committee writes. The Committee also wants the FCC to fast track breaks on fees and waivers for minority media and telecom business owners as, percentage-wise, these take a larger financial bite out of smaller operations than big outfits. But the group's letter saves its most far reaching recommendation for last.

S is for station

The Advisory Committee strongly endorses an idea, proposed by Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project (MAP) at the FCC's En Banc July hearing, that would boost minority media ownership. MAP urges the creation of a new category of television station—Class S. These "Class S" station owners would be able to lease one of the new multiplex subchannels from a full-power commercial digital TV license.

MAP's proposed Class S arrangement would extend to businesses in the SDB group, however that is eventually defined. These licensees would not be allowed to broadcast commercial fare for more than half their schedule. And, if the full power license owner wants to broadcast in high definition, the Class S broadcaster would have to lease some of its spectrum back for that purpose, although not more than six hours per day.

The MAP plan is pretty close to one proposed by Rivera's Advisory Committee in 2007, which would extend the concept to FM stations, too. Rivera's letter suggests that the DTV/subchannel sharing structure is similar to the relationship between the owner of a condominium building and its unit owners. "The DTV sub-channel or HD channel licensee would control its channel’s content, while its engineering would continue to be handled by the DTV or FM station licensee for a fee," it concludes.

Henry Rivera has been working on these sort of issues for a very long time. He is so linked to this issue that, in 2002, when Michael Powell's FCC held its own hearing on minority ownership questions, it summoned him to review the agency's efforts in this regard. Rivera started his history with the United Church of Christ's 1967 petition to get the FCC to prohibit employment discrimination in radio and television.

The UCC, of course, is the Church with which Barack Obama has been associated since the mid-1980s, although he quit his local chapter during the presidential campaign.