This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: May 11, 2026 to May 15, 2026

By David Oxenford & Keenan Adamchak on May 17, 2026

Posted in Broadcast Auctions, Digital Television, Emergency Communications, FCC Fines, FM Radio, FM Translators and LPFM, General FCC, Low Power Television/Class A TV, Multiple Ownership Rules, On Line Media, Political Broadcasting, Programming Regulations, Public Interest Obligations/Localism, Television

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

The FCC announced that it will hold Auction 114, beginning on February 2, 2027, making available 132 channels on which new FM stations can be built. This includes 33 construction permits that were offered but not sold in prior auctions. The FCC’s Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) released a Public Notice proposing procedures for the auction. The OEA seeks comment on its proposed procedures including the auction timeline, minimum bid amounts, bidding eligibility, and default payments. A list of the vacant FM allotments to be offered for sale in Auction 114 can be found here. Comments and reply comments responding to the OEA’s Public Notice are due June 9 and June 24, respectively. For more on Auction 114, see our discussion on our Broadcast Law Blog here.
- To allow Auction 114 to occur, the FCC’s Media Bureau also released a Public Notice announcing a filing freeze on applications proposing modifications to any of the vacant FM allotments included in the auction. The Bureau states that the freeze, which began on May 11, will continue until the day after the post-Auction 114 long-form construction permit applications are due.
The FCC announced that comments and reply comments are due June 15 and June 29, respectively, responding to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to amend the Audible Crawl Rule, which requires TV broadcasters to provide an audio description of visual, nontextual emergency information (radar maps or other graphics) displayed during non-newscast programming on a secondary audio stream (the SAP Channel). The FCC proposes dropping the requirement if a station provides a textual crawl on screen with the same information as in the visual image and if audio of the text is aired on the SAP Channel (as already required for such textual alerts).
State broadcast associations representing broadcasters in all 50 states plus those in DC and Puerto Rico issued a resolution asking that Congress reexamine the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 to determine if the antitrust exemptions provided to sports leagues to negotiate collectively for rights to telecast their games still made sense given the radical change in the television marketplace and the migration of many sports to streaming and other pay services. The NAB applauded that call for Congressional review. These actions appear to be related to the recent FCC proceeding to review sports broadcasting and its relationship to the FCC’s obligation to regulate broadcasting in the public interest (see our article here).
FCC Commissioner Gomez sent a letter to Disney/ABC regarding the FCC’s recent investigations of the company for alleged violations of the FCC’s rules. Gomez asserts that the investigations were politically motivated attempts to put pressure on Disney to dictate its programming choices, which violated the company’s First Amendment right citing, among other things, that the FCC pursued investigating Disney on alleged equal time issues while ignoring other broadcasters’ activities subject to the same rule because the FCC was seeking protecting speech that it favors while punishing speech it opposes. Gomez also claims that the Media Bureau’s January Public Notice (see our discussion here), which changed the common interpretation of a fundamental principle of political broadcasting law for the last thirty years that the “news interview” exception from the equal time rules was to be interpreted broadly, was issued specifically to create new exposure for broadcasters that the FCC wanted to target.
The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology and the Media Bureau announced the release of Version 2.3.1 of TVStudy, which broadcasters use to perform TV station coverage and interference analysis for allotment petitions and modification applications. More information on the changes can be found here.
The FCC announced that comments are due July 13 in response to the following radio station community of license change proposals: WJZA(AM), from Hapeville, Georgia, to North Decatur, Georgia; WNJE(AM), from Trenton, New Jersey, to Jobstown, New Jersey; WKTQ(FM), from Oakland, Maryland, to Chalkhill, Pennsylvania; KDFM(FM), from Falfurrias, Texas, to Premont, Texas; WKBC-FM, from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, to Stony Point, North Carolina; and WWZG(FM), from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, to Park City, Kentucky.
The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued Notices of Violation against four Texas and Illinois LPFM and FM translator stations after the Bureau’s inspection of their stations revealed FCC rule violations. The Bureau found a Texas FM translator failed to rebroadcast its designated primary station and failed to file a modification application to change its antenna. A Texas FM translator and a Texas LPFM station were cited for failing to notify the FCC that they were silent after their equipment was removed from their transmitter sites. An Illinois LPFM station was found to be operating at a location not authorized by its license, as was its studio transmitter link. The stations must now explain to the Bureau how they will correct their rule violations and prevent future violations from occurring and, based on their responses, it will consider whether these stations will be subject to penalties for their alleged violations.
The FCC submitted its semi-annual report to Congress on U.S.-based foreign media outlets. The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA) requires U.S.-based foreign media outlets to register with the FCC. These are entities that produce or distribute video programming transmitted, or intended for transmission, by multichannel video programming distributors in the United States and are agents of a foreign entity or government. Under the NDAA, the FCC must update Congress every six months with a list of the U.S.-based foreign media outlets that registered with the FCC between October 12, 2025 and April 11, 2026. As was the case with many past reports, the report stated that no foreign-based media outlets registered with the FCC.
The Media Bureau released an Order deleting vacant FM Channel 277C at Freeport, Texas from the FM Allotments Table because the allotment did not comply with the FCC’s minimum distance separation requirements. The Bureau deleted the allotment after a staff engineering analysis determined that the vacant FM channel was short-spaced by 182 kilometers to vacant Channel 277C2 at Wharton, Texas, and there were no alternate channels available to resolve the short-spacing conflict.