Even with the holidays upon us, regulation never stops.  There are numerous regulatory dates in December to which broadcasters need to keep in mind.  Furthermore, as the 2024 presidential campaign is already underway, there are political advertising deadlines to watch out for.  Here are some of the upcoming deadlines: December 1 is the filing deadline for Biennial Ownership Reports by all licensees of commercial and noncommercial full-power TV/AM/FM stations, Class A TV stations, and LPTV stations.  The reports must reflect station ownership as of October 1, 2023 (see our a ..read more

Even after yesterday’s deadline for filing ETRS Form Three in connection with the nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System back in October, there are two more deadlines coming next week that broadcasters should bear in mind.  As you prepare to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, don’t forget these FCC deadlines.  Most broadcasters have received plenty of notice about the December 1 deadline for Biennial Ownership Reports.  The FCC has been pushing for stations to fill these out completely and accurately by the deadline (see this reminder issued by the FCC just yesterday), a ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The NAB and REC Networks, an LPFM advocacy organization, jointly requested an extension of the December 12, 2023 deadline for broadcasters to comply with a new EAS rule.  The new rule requires a broadcaster, when receiving an EAS alert, to default for at least 10 seconds to the IPAWS internet-based alert system to see if a CAP-formatted message is conveyed, and to rebroadcast that CAP m ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The FCC has until December 27th to comply with a court order requiring the agency to conclude its still-pending 2018 quadrennial review of its local broadcast ownership rules (see our Broadcast Law Blog article for more on the Court order and on the issues under consideration in that proceeding, including a review of the local radio ownership limits, the restrictions on combinations of two o ..read more

Facebook parent Meta announced this week that it will require labeling on ads using artificial intelligence or other digital tools regarding elections and political and social issues. Earlier this week, we wrote about the issues that AI in political ads pose for media companies and about some of the governmental regulations that are being considered (and the limited rules that have thus far been adopted).  These concerns are prompting all media companies to consider how AI will affect them in the coming election, and Meta’s announcement shows how these considerations are being translated ..read more

In the Washington Post last weekend, an op-ed article suggested that political candidates should voluntarily renounce the use of artificial intelligence in their campaigns.  The article seemed to be looking for candidates to take the actions that governments have largely thus far declined to mandate.  As we wrote back in July, despite calls from some for federal regulation of the use of AI-generated content in political ads, little movement in that direction has occurred.  As we noted in July, a bill was introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to require t ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau released its second EEO audit notice for 2023, which targets 150 radio and television stations for review of their EEO compliance.  The FCC randomly audits approximately 5% of all broadcast stations each year regarding their EEO compliance.  Audited stations and their station employment units – which are commonly owned stations serving the same area – m ..read more

The FCC this week released its second EEO audit notice for 2023.  The FCC’s Public Notice, audit letter, and the list of stations selected for audit is available here.  Those stations, and the station employment units (commonly owned or controlled stations serving the same area sharing at least one employee) with which they are associated, must provide to the FCC (by uploading the information to their online public inspection file) their last two years of EEO Annual Public File reports, as well as backing data to show that the station in fact did everything that w ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announced that comments responding to the Bureau’s proposed final deadlines for the submission of reimbursement claims by earth station operators affected by the C-band transition are due by November 8, 2023.  As we reported in last week’s update, the Bureau has proposed the following deadlines for the submission of C-band transition reimburs ..read more

November is a month where there are no regularly scheduled regulatory deadlines.  But the big question for broadcasters may be whether the FCC will continue to function throughout the month. The last-minute continuing resolution passed by Congress on September 30 extended federal government funding through November 17 – which again raises the possibility of a federal government shutdown beginning in late November if Congress does not approve new funding measures for Fiscal Year 2024 by that date.  As we discussed in our previous article regarding October Regulatory Dates for Broadcas ..read more