Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.  Also, we include a quick look at some important dates in the future.

  • The Enforcement Bureau advised broadcasters (and other participants) of their Emergency Alert System obligations, including the requirement to make EAS messages accessible. The advisory provides a good reminder of a broadcaster’s EAS obligations. (Advisory)
  • The FCC issued a status report on the incentive auction repack and announced that it has sufficient funds available for the reimbursement of costs incurred by LPTV and TV translator stations because of the repacking to increase their payments from 85% of verified estimates to 92.5%. According to the status report, all of the stations repacked as part of the incentive auction have vacated their pre-auction channels and, as of this week, over 95% of the stations are operating with their final technical facilities.  (Public Notice)
  • The FCC released its count of broadcast stations as of year-end 2020, finding more than 33,500 stations, including more than 15,000 full-power radio stations and nearly 1,200 full-power TV stations. (Broadcast Station Totals)
  • The FCC submitted its annual report to Congress on the implementation of the PIRATE Act and the enforcement actions it has taken over the last year. The report notes that COVID-19 and the lack of congressionally-appropriated funds in FY 2020 for the Act have limited implementation and enforcement activities.  (Report)
  • Four low power FM stations in Iowa and Missouri failed to file license renewal applications by their October 1, 2020 filing deadline and are in danger of seeing their licenses expire. This serves as a reminder to television stations in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and radio stations in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma to file their renewal applications, due by February 1, 2021.  (Public Notice)
  • In the copyright world, the Copyright Office released a Notice of Inquiry to review changes to the copyright license granted to satellite TV providers under 2019’s Satellite Television Community Protection and Promotion Act to provide local-into-local retransmission of television stations. The review seeks comments by March 8 as to how the new law impacts affected parties including consumers and stations.  Read more about the inquiry, here.
  • A handful of large radio groups and webcasters will be audited by SoundExchange over their compliance with their copyright licenses for the public performance of sound recordings required when they transmit their programming on the Internet.  Read more about this and other music licensing audits, here.

To help you stay on top of the many scheduled regulatory dates for the rest of the year, we published our Broadcaster’s Regulatory Calendar for 2021, which sets out many of the broadcast regulatory dates and deadlines in 2021.  (Broadcast Law Blog)

Looking ahead, on Monday, a notice is scheduled to appear in the Federal Register announcing the comment period for the FCC’s FM booster rulemaking (we covered the “zonecasting” proposal in more detail, here).  The proceeding asks if boosters should be allowed to originate hyperlocal program that is different from the programming carried on the station they rebroadcast.  Comments will be due by February 10, 2021 and reply comments will be due 30 days later on March 12, 2021.  On Wednesday, the FCC will hold the first of its required monthly Open Meetings of 2021.  After releasing a tentative agenda with only bureau and staff presentations about the FCC’s accomplishments during his term, Chairman Pai, who will preside over his last Open Meeting, added three items for Commissioners to vote on – none of which directly impact broadcasters.  The meeting will be streamed live, here, at 10:30 pm Eastern on January 13.