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

Today’s post will be a bit more into the legal weeds than many of our articles, addressing the standards used by courts to review the decisions of administrative agencies like the FCC.  Last month, there was a Supreme Court argument in a case called Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce that the popular press suggested was going to end the regulation of media companies.  Even the media trade press seemed to think that the decision could cut back on regulations that come from the FCC and other agencies.  As with much popular coverage of legal issues, the real-world impact of ..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 announced the circulation for Commissioner review and approval of two decisions of interest to broadcasters, signifying that we may soon see FCC action on these matters: FCC Commissioners Carr and Starks released a joint statement supporting FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s action circulating an order resolving the FCC’s long-pending proceeding about whether to authorize “zonecasting” o ..read more

We often write about issues concerning the royalties paid by radio stations for their various uses of music.  It is not just paying the royalties that are important, but stations must also observe all of all the other obligations under each of their license agreements.  The Radio Music License Committee asked us to remind commercial radio stations of one of those obligations – the requirement that commercial radio operators report their prior year’s annual station revenues to the Performing Rights Organizations – ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.  As commercial radio stations pay their roy ..read more

President Biden’s signing of the Continuing Resolution last week (see our discussion here) has kept the federal government open, with the FCC and FTC having money to stay open through March 8.  So the FCC will be open and thus there are February regulatory dates to which broadcasters should be paying attention.  February 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma with five or more full-time employees to upload their Annual EEO Public File Report to their stations’ online ..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 released its agenda for its Open Meeting scheduled for February 15.  The FCC will consider two items of interest to broadcasters: For years, the FCC has been exploring how to provide multilingual EAS alerts on broadcast stations (see our Broadcast Law Blog articles here, here, and here on the FCC’s past rejection of attempts to mandate that broadcasters originate such alerts ..read more

The Copyright Royalty Board has published in the Federal Register a correction to its notice announcing the commencement of the next proceeding to set rates for the royalties paid by webcasters (including broadcasters who stream their music through the internet) to SoundExchange for the public performance of sound recordings in the period 2026-2030.  The correction is to the date by which interested parties must file a petition to participate – setting that date as February 5, 2024, not February 6 as originally stated.  Thus, interested parties have a deadline one day earlier than pr ..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 January 12 report listing the items on circulation (those orders or rulemaking proposals that have been drafted and are currently circulating among the Commissioners for review and a vote) noted the removal from the list of a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which proposes prioritizing FCC review of applications seeking approval for license renewal and assignments or t ..read more

Expecting quiet weeks, we took the holidays off from providing our weekly summary of regulatory actions of interest to broadcasters.  But, during that period, there actually were many regulatory developments.  Here are some of those developments, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.  The biggest news from the holiday period was that FCC finally released a Report and Order concluding its long-delayed 2018 Quadrennial Review of the broadcast ownership rules.  The FCC had until December 27 to conclude the ..read more

Earlier this week, we covered the broadcast issues that the FCC may be facing in 2024.  But the FCC is just one of the many branches of government that regulates the activities of broadcasters.  There are numerous federal agencies, the Courts, Congress, and even state legislatures that all are active in adopting rules, making policies, or issuing decisions that can affect the business of broadcasting and the broader media industry.  What are some of the issues we can expect to see addressed in 2024 by these authorities? For radio, there are music rights issues galore that will b ..read more