Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • The FCC rejected a request that it reconsider its December 2020 decision to end a proceeding to set aside one vacant TV channel in each market for exclusive use by unlicensed wireless microphones and white space devices. The Commission concluded that, following the incentive auction and repacking, there was insufficient television spectrum left for there to be a set-aside channel in every market, and there were other ways to accommodate wireless microphones and other unlicensed users (Order on Reconsideration).  Read our blog post about the December 2020 decision, here.
  • Legislation has been introduced in Congress to update the CALM Act. The proposed legislation, if adopted, would eliminate the safe harbor that TV broadcasters currently enjoy if they use approved technology to prevent loud commercials. Instead, that technology would not shield a video provider from possible liability if there was evidence that significant violations were occurring, a determination to be made based on factors including the number of complaints pending and the nature of those complaints.  The legislation would also extend the applicability of the act beyond broadcast and cable to cover streaming video providers.  (Press Release)(CALM Modernization Act).
  • On our Broadcast Law Blog, we wrote last week about the FCC’s current role in regulating the Internet (Blog Post). On the same day we published our article, it was announced that Senator Bennett from Colorado introduced legislation in Congress to create a Federal Digital Platform Commission to regulate Internet platforms. If adopted, the new commission would regulate online platforms to achieve many goals including consumer protection, transparency in moderation policies, ensuring robust competition, and increased educational and public interest content. (Press Release)(Section by Section summary)(Text of Legislation)
  • Following a “paper hearing” designed to speed FCC decisions when cases require fact finding by an FCC administrative law judge, a judge found that a convicted felon’s crimes were not serious enough to warrant his company’s losing its radio licenses. In the case of a felony conviction, the FCC analyzes whether the crimes are so serious that the licensee does not have the character to serve the public as well as whether the crime is indicative of the licensee’s likelihood of not being truthful and forthcoming with the FCC.  In this case, the sole shareholder of the licensee, a former speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, was convicted of crimes relating to improper use of his office for private gain. The judge determined that those crimes were not predictive of his likelihood to be truthful with the FCC, especially given the station’s history of FCC compliance.  Nor were the crimes deemed so morally reprehensible that they demanded that the license be forfeited (Decision). We took a deeper look at this case and the FCC’s character policies when the hearing in this case was first announced, here.
  • The Media Bureau deleted FM channels at Millerton, Oklahoma; Powers, Oregon; Mount Enterprise, Texas; Paint Rock, Texas; Hardwick, Vermont; and Meeteetse, Wyoming. These channels had been included in multiple FM auctions without being sold and no party expressed an interest in bidding on those channels in a future action.  But, because a party pledged to file for it in the next FM auction filing window, the FCC did not delete a vacant allotment at Snowflake, Arizona. (Order)
  • The Audio Division of the Media Bureau rejected a request to cancel the license of a station that went silent and failed for more than a year to notify the FCC that it had gone back on the air. Under Section 312(g) of the Communications Act, a station that is silent for more than a year will have its license automatically canceled unless it can show that the public interest requires the license be extended.  In this case, as the licensee showed that it had in fact returned to operations within the one-year period, the license was not cancelled.  However, because the station was silent for 248 days out of the two years that it was licensed to operate, it was given only a short-term license renewal for only one year, instead of the normal eight years, as the FCC found that prolonged periods of silence did not serve the public.  The short term renewal will allow the licensee to demonstrate that it would in fact serve the public in the future.  (Order and Consent Decree)