Since our last meeting, we have been working to develop a framework that could provide the basis for consensus agreement on recommendations for our report. Ours is an Advisory Committee with no inherent or explicit power other than the credibility and reputation of its members. Our ability to influence the future course of broadcasting and the public interest in the digital age is enhanced dramatically if we can reach agreement that cuts across the many diverse lines represented by our members.

We enclose a framework that we hope can lead us to that consensus. It includes draft language for recommendations in a number of important areas. We expect to receive additional recommendations in the areas of emergency notification and closed captioning/video description, the latter based on the efforts of Karen Peltz Strauss. Our expectation is that this framework will serve as the basis for our initial discussions on Wednesday, along with other ideas and proposals that members may want to raise. By the end of the day, we hope to have a general agreement on a series of recommendations, which we can then redraft to take into account our discussion, and integrate into the body of a more complete report draft, to be prepared by our writer David Bollier.

We would then circulate that draft among the members for comment and suggestions, going through one or more rounds of revision to reach a penultimate version that would be the basis for discussion and ratification at our meeting in October.

We expect a full and robust give-and-take at our meeting on Wednesday. But we are also confident that we can reach a broad agreement in many important areas. The two of us reflect some of the diversity of viewpoints and experience on our panel, and we had spirited debate over this framework. But at the end of the day, when we examined what we had been able to agree upon, we were pleasantly surprised at the innovation and sweep of the proposals. We hope and expect a similar satisfying conclusion to our efforts next week.

Leslie Moonves and Norman Ornstein, Co-chairs