Group Pans FCC’s Plan For Market Definition Changes

The Insights Association, which represents research and analytics firms, has told the FCC it was wrong to propose changing how it determines whether a TV station is significantly viewed in a market outside its licensed market. The FCC approved the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking March 31 and initial comments are due May 14. The FCC is suggesting that actual signal strength of a station may be a better metric than audience/viewership data. The Insights Association says the FCC proposal would “abandon accurate audience measurement research in favor of engineering exercises in signal strength measurement,”