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The FCC has now released its Public Notice formally announcing the payment deadline for the 2011 Annual Regulatory Fees, which will be due by 11:59 pm E.T. on September 14, 2011.  The fees must be processed electronically using the FCC's Fee Filer website, which can be accessed here.   That site is now ready to accept the payment of the 2011 Regulatory Fees, and licensees must log-on to the Fee Filer website using their FRN (FCC Registration Number) and password to review the fees that have been pre-populated in for that particular licensee.  While the list of stations and authorizations reflected in the database should be similar to the list from last year, licensees should carefully review the information and ensure that all stations and authorizations held by the licensee are included.  In particular, stations acquired during the year or new broadcast auxiliaries obtained during the year may not appear on the list and may need to be added. Please note, the FCC will not mail a bill or a reminder to broadcast stations this year, so it is the responsibility of each licensee to determine the extent of its reg fee obligation. 

More information regarding the annual regulatory fees, including instructions for submitting the fees, is available from the Regulatory Fees page of the FCC’s website, available here. UPDATE:  In addition, with regard to broadcast radio and television stations, the FCC has made available a “look-up” database to allow licensees of broadcast stations to confirm the amount owed for each particular station. That look-up database is now available at: www.fccfees.com. 

Consistent with the procedures adopted last year, all licensees are required to pay the annual regulatory fees online via the FCC’s Fee Filer website. In order to access the Fee Filer website and remit the regulatory fee payment, licensees must have a valid FCC Registration Number (FRN) and related password. Payment may be made electronically by credit card or debit card, by check or money order, or by wire transfer. If a licensee prefers to remit payment by check or money order, the licensee must first use the FCC’s electronic Fee Filer system to create a Form 159-E voucher generated by the Fee Filer system. That Form 159-E voucher must then accompany the submission of payment by check or money order, which must be sent to the FCC’s receiving bank in St. Louis, Mo. 

As in the past, payments received after 11:59 pm E.T on Sept. 14, 2011, will automatically incur a 25% late payment fee.  So licensees are encouraged to review and pay their reg fees early to avoid any penalty.  For those needing more details, please see the Commission's full reg fee Order, which contains the 2011 fees for all types of authorizations.

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The FCC has announced the final amount of its regulatory fees for FCC Fiscal Year 2011 - fees that will be due during a window not yet announced - but likely sometime in late August or September.  The Fees, set out below, are pretty much identical to those that were proposed in May, when the FCC sought comments on these fees.  The procedures for filing will be much the same as in the recent past, though the FCC did make a few clarifications on some issues affecting broadcasters.  These issues include the following:

• The FCC will no longer mail notices to broadcasters about their fee obligations.  Instead, stations will need to go to the FCC website to verify the amount of the fees they owe.  Look for the site containing that information to be live in the next few weeks.
• The FCC decided that LPTV and TV translator stations that operate both analog and digital facilities during their digital transition will pay only one fee.  As we wrote last week, that transition will end (barring reconsideration or other review of last week's order) for stations operating on Channels 52-69 at the end of the year, and will end in 2015 for all other LPTV and TV translator stations. 
• The FCC promised to start a new rulemaking before the end of the year to reassess the allocation of the regulatory fee burden.  Within the broadcast industry, that would mean looking at issues such as whether VHF television stations should pay more than UHF stations for their fees - when in the digital world, most think that UHF channels are actually more valuable than those on the VHF band.  But, with potentially more impact, the FCC would look at rebalancing its fees over all the different industries that it regulates. Congress gives the FCC a specific amount of fees that it must raise from all of the industries that it regulates.  The percentage that broadcasters pay has been unchanged for many years.  The FCC is going to review that allocation to assess how business in the various industries have changed to see how those allocations should be changed in the future.

The FCC also reminded broadcasters that they needed to make the payments on time to avoid late fees and interest charges.  Broadcasters pay fees based on a station's status as of October 1, 2010.  Thus, a station that was an unbuilt CP as of October I, 2010, but has subsequently been constructed, still pays the CP fee for this year.  The same goes for stations that have received upgrades in the period after October 1 - they pay only the amount due for their status as of October 1, 2010.  However, if a station has changed ownership since October 1, the new owner is still the one liable for the fee payment.  The broadcast regulatory fees for this year are set forth below:

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The FCC's Annual Regulatory Fee web site, available at  www.fccfees.com, is now active and indicates that the Reg Fees are due by 11:59 PM EDT on August 31, 2010.  A further public notice, which will include detailed instructions on how to access the FCC's Fee Filer database and remit the payment of the fees, should be forth coming from the Commission, likely by the end of the week.  But in the meantime stations can plug their call signs into this "look-up" database and confirm the amounts owed for each facility.  Once the FCC's full public notice is released we will have more details and will post a further advisory on paying the fees, but for now it appears that deadline for this year's Regulatory Fees has been set for August 31st.  Stations should plan their payments accordingly and be sure to avoid the automatic 25% penalty for late payment for any fees paid after midnight on August 31st.

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The FCC today released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asking for public comment on its proposed Regulatory Fees for 2010. These fees are paid annually by most commercial entities that are regulated by the FCC for the privilege of being regulated. Noncommercial broadcasters are exempt from the annual regulatory fees. Collectively, the FCC is proposing to collect over $335 million in fees this year from licensees across the various regulated services. The fees are normally paid in September, and the specific deadline for the payment of this year’s fees will be set by a future Order after the FCC has received comments on, and formally adopted, this proposed fee schedule. The FCC has set a short time for comments, with initial Comments on the proposed fees due by May 4, 2010, and Reply Comments due on May 11, 2010.

As in the past, the Regulatory Fees for broadcast stations are generally based on the Class of Service and the population covered by a station. For the most part, the fees proposed for 2010 for broadcast stations are not much different from the 2009 rates, with the fees for a few categories of television stations actually going down slightly. Additionally, there is no change in the fee proposed for LPTV, Class A, and television translator stations.  The full list of proposed fees across the various categories of broadcast stations is provided below.  A few things to note with respect to the fees with respect to digital television stations. The NPRM proposes to collect annual regulatory fees from all digital full-service television stations, including any that may have been operating pursuant to Special Temporary Authority (rather than a license) on October 1, 2009.  With respect to low power and Class A television stations, the FCC has proposed that if a station is operating both an analog and a paired digital signal, then only a single regulatory fee will be assessed for the analog facility and no fee would be required for the digital companion channel.

Not surprisingly, the Commission has proposed to make the use of its electronic Fee Filer database  for the submission of the annual regulatory feesmandatory again, as it was in 2009.  It has also proposed that 2010 will be the last year that it will send out reminder letters to broadcast stations about the fees. Starting in 2011, the FCC is proposing to discontinue sending out media notification letters. As the payment deadline will be sometime in September, watch for an Order this Summer adopting the proposed fees, after folks have had a chance to comment. 

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As the summer hurtles to a close, the FCC has adopted its FY2007 Annual Regulatory Fees, and appears to have set September 19^th as the deadline for submitting the annual fees.  (I say “appears to have set” because as of this writing, the FCC has yet to formally announce the deadline for the regulatory fees, but a banner at the top of www.fcc.gov announces that fees are due by September 19, 2007.)  Payment may be made by check or credit card, and can be submitted either in paper or electronically.  Payments not made by 11:59 PM on September 19^th will face the addition of a 25% late fee. 

The Commission has a helpful web page, which includes instructions for submitting the regulatory fees and a “look-up” database to allow stations to confirm the amount owed for their stations.  The site also contains a Frequently Asked Questions section, and links to the database where you can submit the fees electronically.  In addition, for those needing more detail, the Commission’s full Order detailing the fees for all types of licensees is available here.  In addition, the FCC will also release shortly a guide specifically for radio and television broadcast stations with codes, fee amounts, and instructions.  Once that is available from the FCC, we’ll add a link here.      

Licensees are encouraged to submit their fees on time and make sure the payments are accurate.  And be sure to keep a copy of all correspondence or electronic confirmations.  Historically, the FCC’s recordkeeping on regulatory fees has not been the best, and the process seems to be conducted by a third-party contractor, further complicating issues. In addition, failure to timely submit the proper regulatory fee can block the processing of future applications. Accordingly, it is better in the long-run to take some extra time to make sure these fees are paid properly, then to try and deal with the headache later. 

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