Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The FCC announced several dates and deadlines in proceedings of importance to broadcasters: The FCC announced that May 16 is the effective date of its decision authorizing limited program origination by FM booster stations.  This means that, beginning on May 16, a licensed FM station may seek experimental authority for up to a year (which can be renewed) to originate up to 3 minutes o ..read more

Last week, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Apparent Liability proposing an $8000 fine on a Los Angeles radio broadcaster that did not award a contest prize until over a year after the contest rules called for the prize to be delivered.  The contest rules called for the prize to be awarded within 30 days of a winner sending all required paperwork to the station.  As payments were made over a year after the end of the 30-day period provided by the contest rules, the Bureau concluded that the station had violated Section 73.1216 of the FCC rules which requires, among oth ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The debate over the AM for Every Vehicle Act intensified this week, with the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board publishing an article opposing Congressional action to require automobile manufacturers to include free over-the-air AM radio in every car.  The CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters responded in an article in Radio World magazine.  We summarized the arguments and offer ..read more

For the first time since October, we can say that the federal government is funded for the rest of the fiscal year (through the end of September) so we do not expect to have to report on any threats of a government shutdown for many months. With that worry off our plate, we can look at the dates that broadcasters do need to pay attention to in the month of April. First, we’ll look at the most significant routine filing deadlines coming up in April.  April 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas ..read more

Congress passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill to keep the federal government funded through the end of this fiscal year on September 30 – thereby narrowly averting a government shutdown that would have begun as of midnight on Saturday, March 23. The FCC issued a Notice of Apparent Liability proposing to fine Nexstar Media Group, Inc. $1,224,790 and Mission Broadcasting, Inc. $612,395.00 for their purported violations of the FCC’s broadcast ownership rules resulting from Mission’s acquisition of WPIX, New York, NY.  The FCC found that Mission’s acquisition of WPIX apparently resulted in N ..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. Congress passed, and the President signed, a continuing resolution to extend funding for the Federal government, including the FCC, averting a partial government shutdown.  Funding for some government agencies is extended through March 8, with the remainder funded through March 22, in hopes that a more permanent funding solution will be agreed to this week.  On our Broadcast Law Bl ..read more

While there are a number of regulatory deadlines scheduled for broadcasters in the month of March, there is also the potential for some of those to shift if we have a federal government shutdown.  As of the date of the publication of this article, we do not know if a federal government shutdown will occur this month, with the FCC and FTC currently being funded only through March 8.  As we recently discussed here, the FCC and other government agencies may have to cease all but critical functions if they do not have any residual funds to continue operations during a shutdown.  The ..read more

When you have been representing broadcasters in Washington for as long as I have, you see cycles in regulation of the industry.  I was reminded of how long the FCC has been on a deregulatory cycle in reading today’s Washington Post obituary of former Democratic FCC Chair Charlie Ferris, who headed the FCC many decades ago when I interned there and when I later started to work in private practice representing broadcasters.  One line in the Post article in particular stood out – where Ferris was said to have “argued that unless regulations were ‘improving the market,’ they ‘were nothin ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The FCC adopted an Order that will reinstate FCC Form 395-B, which requires broadcasters to annually report their employees’ race or ethnicity and their gender, while classifying the employees in job categories (e.g., Officers and Managers, Professionals, Sales Workers, Clerical – see the most recent version of the Form for all the categories).  This week’s decision said that the colle ..read more

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. The FCC announced that March 18 is the effective date of the rules adopted in its December 2023 Report and Order concluding its 2018 Quadrennial Review of its broadcast ownership rules.  As we noted in our Broadcast Law Blog article when the FCC adopted its Order, the only meaningful change made in the local ownership rules was to make clear that one TV station cannot acquire the Top 4 netw ..read more