236
Opinion of the Court
49493 (1998) (FCC "not persuaded that the current retention period [two years] is overly burdensome to licensees").
In any event, as the FCC wrote in an analogous context, broadcaster recordkeeping requirements " 'simply run with the territory.' " 40 Fed. Reg. 18398 (1975). Broadcasters must keep and make publicly available numerous records. See 47 CFR § 73.3526 (2002) (general description of select recordkeeping requirements for commercial stations); see also §§ 73.1202, 73.3526(e)(9)(i) (retention of all "written comments and suggestions [including letters and e-mail] received from the public regarding operation of the station" for three years); § 73.1212(e) (sponsorship identification records, including the identification of a sponsoring entity's executive officers and board-level members when sponsoring "political matter or matter involving the discussion of a controversial issue of public importance"); § 73.1840 (retention of station logs); § 73.1942 (candidate broadcast records); § 73.2080 (equal employment opportunities records); §§ 73.3526(e)(11)(i), (e)(12) ("list of programs that have provided the station's most significant treatment of community issues during the preceding three month period," including "brief narrative describing [the issues, and] time, date, duration, and title"); §§ 73.3526(e)(11)(ii), (iii) (reports of children's program, and retention of records sufficient to substantiate "compliance with the commercial limits on children's programming"); § 73.3613(a) (network affiliation contracts); §§ 73.3613(b), 73.3615, 73.3526(e)(5) (ownership-related reports); § 73.3613(c) ("[m]anagement consultant agreements"); § 73.3613(d) ("[t]ime brokerage agreements"). Compared to these longstanding recordkeeping requirements, an additional six to seven hours is a small drop in a very large bucket.
The McConnell plaintiffs also claim that the "candidate requests" requirement fails significantly to further any important governmental interest. Brief for McConnell Plaintiffs 74. But, again, we cannot agree. The FCC has pointed out
Page: Index Previous 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007