Who must prepare Quarterly Issues Programs lists?
All radio and television broadcast stations, commercial and noncommercial, must prepare these lists and place them in their public files within 10 days of the end of each quarter. Unlike Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reports, which are prepared on behalf of the local station group, the Quarterly Issues Programs list is station specific. Each station should have its own Quarterly Issues Programs list, reporting on programming broadcast on that station, which addresses issues of importance to the viewers or listeners of that particular station. Why are Quarterly Issues Programs lists significant? In the 1980s, the FCC “deregulated” radio and television. However, deregulation did not mean that broadcast stations were free to ignore their public interest obligations. Instead, the FCC determined that there did not need to be one set of rules for all stations mandating how stations should determine what issues were of importance to their communities, or a single set of rules mandating h
