The Federal Communications Commission is inviting comments on a proposal to allow public radio and television stations to raise money for any nonprofit. Now stations are solely allowed to raise money for their own programs and operations, in part because regulators wanted to ensure broadcasters put all their energy into educational programs.
Stations have been allowed to raise money for big catastrophes, for example after Hurricane Katrina. But they had to go through a special process of getting a waiver from the federal communications agency.
Under the FCC plan, public radio and television stations could spend up to 1 percent of their annual broadcast time—about 88 hours per year—doing on-air fundraising appeals for any charity they want to help.
