The Federal Communications Commission has recently threatened to come down on broadcasters who accept ads from advertisers that bypass Urban or Latino stations, a practice that has been the ad industry’s “dirty little secret,” Adweek reports.

"Trying to use the FCC's authority over broadcasters as a method to modify the conduct of advertisers (who are generally beyond the FCC's authority) is a futile approach," Scott Flick, a communications partner at Pillsbury, wrote on the firm’s CommLawCenter blog.

"I don't know if anyone figured out if it would actually accomplish anything," he told Adweek.