main studio rules - Broadcast Law Blog

When the FCC Comes Knocking, Answer the Door! - $10,000 Fines for Unattended Main Studios

David Oxenford — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:43:20 -0500

The FCC's main studio rules require that broadcast stations have a main studio open during normal business hours. And, when the studio is open, it obviously needs to be manned so that someone is there to meet any visitors who my show up. And, sometimes, those visitors are from the FCC. When the FCC shows up, one would think that station employees would go out of their way to greet the inspectors and provide them what they want. But in two cases decided this week, that simply didn't seem to be the case, resulting in two notices of apparent liability proposing $10,000 fines.

One case involved a cable system (which also has a public file obligation and a duty to make the file available during normal business hours), whose employees allegedly asked FCC inspectors to return the next day when a supervisory employee would be present. In a broadcast case, the FCC inspectors found an apparently unmanned building at what was supposed to be the station's studio site and, when a woman arrived who was apparently the wife of the owner, rather than letting the inspectors in to the building, she told them they would have to call her husband - who did not answer his phone. In responding to an FCC letter about the inspection that suggested that there was a violation, the licensee said that the inspectors erred by not ringing the door bell, and that employees come and go as they are needed, but are usually there during the day. After getting that response, the FCC inspectors returned to the station to conduct another inspection, and found no doorbell, and an office that was again empty. Obviously, these are preliminary findings of liability, and the facts and law, upon further examination, may prove to be different than what the FCC set out. But broadcasters should take note of the FCC's actions.

]]>What is the moral of the story? Have a manned main studio during normal business hours - something like 9 AM to 5 PM. Be sure that anyone visiting the station can get in the front door, and that anyone at the station greeting them knows what to do when visitors arrive - especially visitors from the FCC. Make sure that even a temp knows where the public file is, and that you actually keep such a file (see this case, where the station's chief operator told the FCC inspectors that the station does not keep issues programs lists - resulting in a $10,000 fine and an obligation to report to the FCC when the issues programs lists are completed each quarter). And make sure that anyone at the station knows how to to get in touch with management at all times, so that someone can immediately deal with a request for a more thorough inspection. Especially when dealing with the FCC inspector at your door, you want to be ready and, for the most part, to give them what they want. A little planning now can save some big bucks down the road.

What Do The FCC Main Studio Rules Require? - Recent $21,000 Fine Offers Some Clarification

David Oxenford — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:11:18 -0500

The FCC has continued this week on its recent tear of fining broadcast stations and other regulated entities for violations of FCC rules - in the last week proposing fines or reaching consent decrees relating to issues including incomplete public files, EAS violations, unauthorized transfers of FM translators, and tower lighting issues, among others. But a fine issued to a station a few weeks ago merits further review as it provides some more clarity as to what the FCC requires from a broadcast station's "main studio." In this recent case, the FCC proposed a $21,000 fine to this broadcaster who allegedly did not have an adequate main studio or public file, and for operating its AM station after sunset with its daytime facilities.

What do the FCC main studio rules require? Currently, all full-power broadcasters (including Class A TV stations, with the limited exception of satellite television stations and some noncommercial radio satellite stations who may operate with main studio waivers) must maintain a studio either within its city of license, or at another site either within 25 miles of its city of license or within the city-grade contour of any station licensed to the same city of license as the station. As set out in Section 73.1125 of the FCC rules, no matter where the studio is located, local residents must be able to reach the station by a toll-free telephone call. The rule, however, does not specifically state what must be at the main studio - those rules are either found elsewhere in the FCC rules or have been developed by caselaw.

]]>Obviously, stations should have a public file at their main studio. The studio is also supposed to be open and staffed during normal business hours (normally something like 9 to 5). At least two employees must report to the main studio as their principal place of business on a daily basis, and at least one of those employees should be physically present during business hours. I like to tell clients that the studio is where these two employees have their desks with the pictures of their families, and where they sit and do their work when they are not on sales calls, or collecting the news or whatever else they may be doing. At least one of these two employees must also be a management employee.

The main studio must also be capable of originating programming and controlling the station. Just what does that mean? The recent case provides guidance on that issue. In that case, the licensee pointed to two locations as possible main studios. One was the station's transmitter site, but there were no production studios there, nor where there any people regularly there. The second was a private home. The home did house portions of the public file, and the station's sound board and microphone were at the house. Why did that not qualify as a main studio? The FCC found that there were no station employees there (presumably no one on the licensee's payroll), the site was not open to the public and it did not have continuous program transmission capability as it only had one telephone line - presumably for the resident's use, not for transmitting programming. This decision seems to imply that, to qualify as a main studio, the location needs to have a means to continuously broadcast - presumably either a dedicated phone line or an STL.

In this case, the $21,000 fine was broken down $7000 for the main studio violation, $10,000 for the public file violation, and $4000 for operating post-sunset at a power higher than permitted by the station license. Some might suggest that, in a ranking of real importance to the FCC's mission and service to the public, the amounts of those fines are backwards - shouldn't potential interference from overpower operation violating the terms of the station license be a more egregious violation than the failure to have a public file that no one ever visits?

In any event, the main studio remains an important part of FCC enforcement, and stations need to make sure that they are in compliance with the rules. Watch for more on tomorrow's meeting discussing the Future of Media report - now being called the report on the impact of technology on the information needs of communities - where more may be said about the rules relating to the main studio and public file.

FCC Issues $15,000 Fines For Unauthorized Transfer of Control and Main Studio Staffing Violations for LMA Done Wrong

David Oxenford — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:49:12 -0500

$15,000 per station was the cost of a broadcast licensee’s failure to adequately supervise two stations of which he was the licensee, but which were operated pursuant to time brokerage agreements or LMAs. Like many stations in these tough economic times, this licensee decided to allow a third party to provide the bulk of the programming and retain the bulk of the sales revenues, in exchange for a payment. However, as the licensee remained the licensee, he was required to maintain and exercise control over the station’s operations, and maintain a meaningful staff presence at the station. In reviewing the operations of these stations, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau in recent decisions (here and here) concluded that the adequacy of that control was insufficient – providing a warning to other station licensees operating under LMA agreements that they must maintain operational control over the stations that they own.

The FCC has long said that a licensee must maintain a meaningful staff presence at a station, even if the station receives the vast majority of its programming from some other source – whether that is a network or programming provided under an LMA. Meaningful presence has required that at least two employees at the station be employed by the licensee, one of whom must be managerial and perform no services for the broker providing the programming under the LMA. This case makes clear that these required licensee employees must be physically present at the station’s main studio on a regular day to day basis – they cannot be located at some distant location supervising the station remotely or only periodically present at the main studio. Failure to have the station’s main studio manned by the required personnel in and of itself accounted for $7000 of the fine in this case.

]]>The decision in the case also faulted the licensee for an unauthorized transfer of control of the station, as the licensee did not adequately control station operations. This was evident to the FCC based not only on the lack of employees, but also based on a number of other factors. First, the LMA agreement by which the station was being operated was not in writing, but was only evidenced by invoices for payment – insufficient in the FCC’s eyes to insure the required degree of control over station operations. The FCC rules require that Time Brokerage Agreements be in writing, with copies in the station's public file. The licensee was also unable to certify, when asked by the FCC, whether certain station functions (like the maintenance of the public file and the broadcast of required EAS tests), were being accomplished, being only able to state that he was told by the broker that these matters were being dealt with. The unauthorized transfer of control made up the remaining $8000 of the $15,000 fine.

After imposing these fines, the FCC said that it would further review the operations of the stations, watching their future operations to insure that the licensee was in fact exercising the required degree of control. For broadcast licensees everywhere, this decision should demonstrate that the FCC is still concerned about the control of your station – make sure that you are doing what is necessary to maintain that control.

FCC Inspections - Fines for Violations of Rules on Main Studio, EAS, and Public File

David Oxenford — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:38:48 -0500

Last week, the FCC issued several fines to broadcasters for failure to observe some basic FCC rules. As there many FCC rules to observe, broadcasters should use the misfortune of others who have suffered from these fines as a way to check their own operations to make sure that they meet all of the required Commission standards. In the recent cases, fines were issued for a variety of violations, including the failure to have a manned main studio, the failure to have a working EAS system, incomplete public files, operations of an AM station at night with daytime power, and the failure to have a locked fence around an AM tower. This post deals with the issues discovered at the studios of stations - a separate post will deal with the issues at the transmitter sites.

The main studio rule violation was a case that, while seemingly obvious, also should remind broadcasters of their obligations under the requirement that a station have a manned main studio. In this case, when the FCC inspectors arrived at the station's main studio, they found it locked and abandoned. Once they were able to locate a station representative to let them into the studio, they found that there was some equipment in the facility, but it was not hooked up, nor was there any telephone or data line that would permit the station to be controlled from the site. The Commission's main studio rules require that there be at least two station employees for whom the studio is their principal place of business (I like to think of it as the place where these employees have their desks with the pictures of their kids or their dog, as the case may be, and where they show up in the morning to drink their morning cup of coffee before heading out to do sales, news or whatever their job may be). At least one of the two employees who report to the studio as their principal place of business must be a management level employee, and at least one of those employees must be present during all normal business hours. Thus, the studio should never be devoid of human life. The studio must be able to originate programming, and the station must be able to be controlled from that location so that the employees there could originate programming in the event of a local emergency. In light of these violations and others, the station in this case was fined $8000.

]]>Another problem identified identified in another case was the lack of a functioning EAS receiver. The FCC has this week been emphasizing the importance of emergency communications, and one of the principal means of that communication (and, as we wrote here, of demonstrating service to the public in the context of all sorts of FCC proceedings) is the EAS system by which state, local or national officials can communicate with the public in the event of an emergency. In most states, the EAS system currently works as a daisy chain, with a series of stations monitoring other stations to pass the emergency message down the chain. All stations are supposed to monitor both a primary and secondary station, so that if they don't get the message from one station, they will get it from the other. In one of the recent FCC cases, FCC inspectors found that the station had not logged the receipt of any emergency alert system test from either of the stations that the inspected station was supposed to be monitoring and, after being told of the problem, the station still could not receive a test when one was conducted several days later. I have heard from some FCC inspectors, that this is not an infrequent problem, as the EAS units can be installed improperly, can be damaged by power surges or other problems, or can simply have their receive antennas knocked off the back of the unit when inadvertently jarred. As a station's Chief Operator is supposed to be signing off on a station's "Station Log" weekly, and the principal thing that is supposed to be recorded in the log is EAS tests (as well as any other technical issue at the station), if the Chief Operator does not notice that the regular EAS test has not been logged, someone is not doing their job. The log should make someone notice, and problems should be rectified at once.

Another issue turned up by these inspections was with the FCC public file. In the same case where the EAS issues were discovered, the FCC inspectors discovered that there were missing Quarterly Programs Issues lists in the station's public file. We've written before about how the failure to have these lists in a public file can lead to fines at license renewal time (probably the most frequent source of license renewal fines), but it can also lead to a fine if the FCC inspector comes knocking. Our Davis Wright Tremaine Advisory on the Quarterly Programs Issues List (the most recent edition is here, though a new one for October reports should be out very soon), talks about how important these lists are, and provides information on how to complete them. Check it out, and make sure that your station is in compliance.

Given the variety of issues that can arise during an FCC inspection, and the potential for fines in connection with any violation, stations should review their operations now to avoid issues later.

FCC Issues Rules on Digital Radio - With Some Surprises that Could Eventually Impact Analog Operations

David Oxenford — Thu, 31 May 2007 15:48:40 -0500

The FCC today issued the long-awaited text of its decision on Digital Audio radio - the so-called IBOC system. As we have written, while adopted at its March meeting, the text of the decision has been missing in action. With the release of the decision, which is available here, the effective date of the new rules can be set in the near future - 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register. With the Order, the Commission also released its Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, addressing a host of new issues - some not confined to digital radio, but instead affecting the obligations of all radio operations.

The text provides the details for many of the actions that were announced at the March meeting, including authorizing the operation of AM stations in a digital mode at night, and the elimination of the requirements that stations ask permission for experimental operations before commencing multicast operations. The Order also permits the use of dual antennas - one to be used solely for digital use - upon notification to the FCC. In addition, the order addresses several other matters not discussed at the meeting, as set forth below.

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Holding that a party that does a time brokerage agreement for more than 15% of any digital stream offered by another station has an attributable interest in the full station. Thus, an owner who has a full complement of stations that he owns in a market cannot exceed the multiple ownership limitations by programming a digital over-the-air stream of another broadcaster in his market.

Rejected all objections to full-powered operations by grandfathered super-powered stations and short-spaced stations, finding that such a limitation was beyond the scope of this proceeding, and that no compelling reason for these limitations had been shown - but promised to monitor the situation.

Delayed consideration of whether noncommercial stations could use some of their digital capacity to offer commercial programming.

Permitted time brokerage of digital channels under the same rules that apply to a station's main analog channel.

Found it premature to adopt rules for the full transition to digital operations - and adopted no obligations for any minimum operations in digital. So the choice of whether to operate digitally is fully up to the broadcaster.

Limited operation of subscription services on digital channels to those specifically authorized following a request for experimental authority, until after the Commission completes consideration of the comments filed in response to its Further Notice.

Applied most standard programming obligations to digital streams - including the political rules and sponsorship identification (including payola rules).

Applied EAS rules to digital radio channels just as they apply to analog channels.

Adopted station identification rules requiring that the station use its main station call letters, followed by the community of license, and some identification, either orally or in text on the digital receiver, that a listener is listening to a digital stream (e.g. "This is WXYZ digital channel 1, Anytown, USA"). As with a station's normal legal ID, the frequency of the station can be inserted between the call letters and the city of license.

In addition to these rules, the FCC adopted a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Not only does this Further Notice address the issues listed above of allowing the commercial use of some digital capacity of noncommercial stations, and allowing the use of subscription services on digital streams, but it goes much further. It suggests a number of revisions to FCC rules - some of which would apply to analog as well as digital operations. These include:

A proposal that public files for radio stations be kept digitally on a station's website.
The possible use of a standardized disclosure statement for reporting the public interest performance of broadcasters.
The possible elimination of relaxed main studio and program origination requirements, which no longer require the origination of any programming at a main studio.
A possible requirement that stations be manned, cutting back on recent Commission rulings that allow for unmanned, automated operations during nighttime and weekend hours. in particular, the FCC points to the automation of EAS and how that has led to some problems in cases of off-hours emergencies.

Addressing these most important issues will need careful attention from broadcasters, as these issues may well impact all stations - not just those who choose to operate digitally. Comments will be due 60 days after the Order is published in the Federal Register. Replies will be due 30 days later.