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The FCC today announced a brief extension, until the end of the day tomorrow, for the submission of annual regulatory fees.  No explanation for the extension is provided. So you now have until 11:59 Eastern time tomorrow to get those fees submitted without facing late fees and penalties.  The FCC Public Notice announcing the extension is here.  Our previous post on these fees, setting out the procedures for filing and other details, is available here.

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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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If a broadcaster or other FCC regulatee has not paid their regulatory fees when they are due, the FCC's computer system will show a "red light" on the company that owed the fee - and the FCC will not grant any applications filed by that company.  As it is, it can take days, and sometime weeks, to straighten out issues about the non-payment or late payment of fees.  Well, the process may get more difficult in the near future as, according to a Public Notice released today, the FCC is changing its financial system in October - which may make the system unavailable from October 1 through October 18.  Thus, problems with past due fees, and possibly even fees paid in connection with new applications, may not show up in the Commission's system during that period.  Even for time-sensitive new applications, where the FCC wants to know if the appropriate application fee has been paid before an application is granted, delays may occur.  Thus, the FCC warns applicants to plan their filings accordingly to avoid this period, if possible.

The Public Notice seems to anticipate that fees paid by check, as opposed to using the on-line payment system, will be subject to greater processing delays.  So review the Public Notice, and plan accordingly, to avoid any unnecessary processing delays during this period. 

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The FCC now has sent notices to broadcast stations about their obligation to pay regulatory fees by August 31.  Last week, it issued three public notices about the fees - one simply announcing that the fees are due by that date, one setting out the procedures for filing the regulatory fees, and a third reminding all filers that they need to pay using the FCC's on-line Fee Filer system.   The FCC's website is operational, and broadcasters can begin the process of completing the necessary filings.  Davis Wright Tremaine has summarized all the filing obligations in an advisory on the FCC's regulatory fee filing obligations sent out last week, and available here.  To avoid delays in processing applications, and to avoid fees and penalties, be sure to pay your fees on time.  And, as set forth in the DWT Advisory, don't forget to figure out the fees due for your broadcast auxiliary stations (e.g. your STLs and Remote Pick-ups), as these licenses are not contained in the fee notice sent to you by the FCC.  So be prepared for the August 31 deadline. 

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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 has released a Public Notice, warning regulated entities that there are websites that pretend to be the site on which FCC regulatory fees are to be electronically filed.  These so-called "phishing" sites are apparently out to obtain from broadcasters and other entities regulated by the FCC information about their financial accounts.  The Public Notice reminds broadcasters that the site on which fees are to be paid is www.fcc.gov/feefiler.  If you see some other URL address, beware.  Make sure that you are in fact on the FCC's website before revealing any private financial information.  More on the FCC filing fees can be found in the Davis Wright Tremaine Advisory on the fees, and in our prior posts, here and here. 

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The FCC has released its Public Notice announcing the procedures for submitting Annual Regulatory Fees.  These annual fees are paid by broadcasters and other entities that are regulated by the FCC, essentially for the privilege of being regulated.  We detailed the amount of the fees for broadcasters in our post, here.  Regulatory Fees can already be submitted to the FCC through its on-line filing system or on paper, and some broadcasters have already done so as the Commission's alerts about the specific fees that each station owes were mailed to broadcasters in the last two weeks (minus the information as to the final filing date).  If your station has not received such a notice, check the mailing address that the FCC has on file for your station, as it may not be accurate.  Today's Public Notice sets the deadline date for the filing of regulatory fees as September 25.

The payment of regulatory fees is very important, as the failure to pay on time can cause the FCC to impose a "red light" on a licensee - blocking the processing of any application by the licensee.  In fact, in the last few weeks, the FCC has been sending out delinquency notices to licensees claiming that past regulatory fees have not been paid.  We are finding a significant number of these notices are being sent in error, so watch you mailbox carefully and, if you receive a notice that you failed to pay your regulatory fees for past years, and you did in fact do so, get that discrepancy corrected as quickly as possible to avoid the perceived failure from blocking any application that your station may want to file at anytime in the future. And don't forget to get this year's fees on file by September 25 to avoid late-fees and potential red-light issues.

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The FCC today released its schedule for Regulatory Fees that will be paid in September of this year.  The Order set the fees to be paid by entities regulated by the FCC, increasing those fees as required by Congress by approximately 7.5% over the fees paid last year. The fees to be paid by broadcasters are set forth below.  Fees for all other services can be found in the appendix to the FCC's Order setting the fees.  The exact window for paying the fees has not yet been set, but should be announced later this month, in a public notice that will also provide more details on the filing process.  The Order also contains a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asking if the FCC should change the allocation of fees between the services regulated by the FCC.  As to broadcasters specifically, the FCC asks if it should adopt fees for Digital Television, as the current FCC fees apply only to analog television.  Comments on these issues will be due 30 days after this Order is published in the Federal Register.

In reaching its decision as to the fees for 2008, the FCC decided not to impose a fee on AM expanded band stations for the current fee cycle - but it will decide whether to do so after the FCC decides the issue raised in the pending Diversity proceeding as to whether to allow licensees to retain those AM stations if they are held by a small business entity.

Fees are paid based on the status of the station as of October 1, 2007 (so, for instance, if a station had received an upgrade in the interim, it pays based on its old facilities).  However, the licensee who owns the station as of the date that fees are due is responsible for paying those fees, even if it did not own the station as of October 1, 2007.  Fees for radio are set by a combination of the predicted population served by the station and the class of the station, while TV station's fees are paid based on TV market size.  Parties holding construction permits for new stations pay flat fees regardless of the area served by the proposed station, and there are also flat fees for broadcast auxiliaries, television stations that are authorized as satellites of other stations, and secondary broadcast stations (e.g. translators).  Noncommercial operators are exempt from the fees.  The fees for broadcasters can be seen by clicking on the "Continue Reading" link below. 

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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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