First Quarter Children's Reports Postponed until June
The FCC has announced that the filing of the FCC Form 398 Children's Television Programming Reports for the First Quarter of 2007 will be postponed until June. Thus, rather than preparing the Form 398, filing it with the FCC, and placing it in the station's public file by April 10th (ten days after the end of the first quarter), the report for the First Quarter of 2007 does not have to be completed, filed, and placed in the public file until June 10th.
This extension of time to file is the result of the FCC's revision of the Form 398 to solicit information regarding children's programming aired on multicast digital streams, as well as a result of an ongoing upgrade of the FCC's computer database containing the children's television reports. As we've reported previously on this blog and in a separate bulletin, the Commission last year made revisions to its children's television rules, including the extension of the programming obligations to multicast digital television streams. The revised Form 398 will contain additional sections for stations to certify their compliance with the various new rules, as well as to report the core children's programming aired on the digital programming streams.
According to the FCC's Public Notice announcing the extension of the filing deadline, the revised electronic version of the Form 398 should be available on the Commission's website by May 15, 2007. We will let you know once the new form is available, and stations should be careful to gather and retain the pertinent information for the programs broadcast in the first quarter so that information is available once the new form is released.
