Ownership Report Filing Requirement Officially Suspended Until New Form 323 is Approved by the OMB
Just this morning, we posted a comment about the new FCC Form 323 Ownership Report that was supposed to be required of all commercial broadcasters on November 1 of this year, and then on November 1 of every other year thereafter. We wrote about how the approval of the form by the Office of Management and Budget under the Paperwork Reduction Act had been held up, and that the November 1 filing deadline looked unlikely. Well, the FCC today issued an Order officially putting the November 1 filing obligation on hold pending approval of the new form. There had been a suggestion in the FCC's order issued in late May, which suspended ownership filings for stations in states that had ownership filing obligations between then and November 1, that stations in these states would have to file on the old form on November 1 if the new form was not adopted by that date. Today's Order suspends even that obligation. Thus, no station needs to be prepared to file the new Ownership Report until the new version of Form 323 is approved by the Office of Management and Budget - whenever that may be. Stayed tuned for more developments.
