Advertising Issues

Subscribe to Advertising Issues via RSS

October is another busy month of regulatory dates and deadlines for broadcasters.  Unlike previous years, there is no threat of a federal government shutdown on its October 1 start of the new fiscal year, so the dates and deadlines discussed below should not move on broadcasters.  As we detail below, all stations will need to observe EAS reporting requirements for the filing of ETRS Form One in anticipation of the upcoming Nationwide EAS Test, and all full-power stations need to remember the Quarterly Issues Programs list filing deadline.  While there always can be an October surprise, we take a look below at these and other significant dates and deadlines in the coming month. 

October 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Alaska, American Samoa, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Iowa, Missouri, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington with five or more full-time employees to upload their Annual EEO Public File Report to their stations’ Online Public Inspection Files (OPIFs).  A station employment unit is a station or cluster of commonly controlled stations serving the same general geographic area having at least one common employee.  For employment units with five or more full-time employees, the annual report covers hiring and employment outreach activities for the prior year.  A link to the uploaded report must also be included on the home page of each station’s website, if the station has a website.  Be timely getting these reports into your station’s OPIF, as even a single late report has in the past led to significant FCC fines (see our article here about a $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).

The filing of the Annual EEO Public File Reports triggers the Mid-Term EEO Review beginning October 1 for TV station employment units with five or more employees in Alaska, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and Washington.  The Mid-Term EEO Review that analyzes the last two Annual EEO Public File Reports for compliance with the FCC’s EEO requirements.  See our articles here and here on stations’ Mid-Term EEO Review reporting requirements.

Continue Reading October 2026 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists; EAS Test Form One; Annual EEO Public File Reports; EEO Audit Responses; Filing Freeze on FM Translators; and more

On September 4, as we noted in our weekly update of regulatory activity of importance to broadcasters, the Supreme Court seemingly decided that Lowest Unit Rates for this year’s elections would be governed by the Media Bureau’s March Public Notice – the Public Notice announcing that ads from political parties and joint fundraising committees, when approved by a federal candidate, would get those rates. The Supreme Court stayed a decision of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals that had found that ads from these groups did not get LUR, interpreting the law to say that those rates only applied to candidates themselves, not to other groups even if authorized by the candidate (see our article here about the 4th Circuit decision).  As the Supreme Court decision was released on September 4, the first day of the LUR period for the November elections, many assumed that we heard the end of this dispute until the Supreme Court gets around to resolving the substantive issues, a decision unlikely to occur until sometime next year.  But we were wrong, as there was a new flurry of activity this past week. Let’s look at the Supreme Court’s decision and the activity it triggered last week. 

The Supreme Court’s decision never addressed the substance of the issue of whether ads from political parties and joint fundraising committees, when authorized by federal candidates, should get LUC.  Instead, the decision stayed the 4th Circuit decision because the 4th Circuit had ruled on the issue before the full Commission had the opportunity to address challenges to the Media Bureau decision.  As other courts have held that the Commission must first rule on a Bureau decision before a judicial appeal can be brought, the Supreme Court found that the 4th Circuit decision departed from the reasoning of those of other courts.  That procedural conflict as to whether the controversy was ripe for court review had to first be resolved before the substance of the matter could be addressed.  The Supreme Court decision thus stayed the effectiveness of the 4th Circuit decision until the Supreme Court can resolve this conflict.  That resolution would determine whether the 4th Circuit had the power to review the substantive issues about LUC without the Commission having first ruled on challenges to the Media Bureau’s Public Notice.

Continue Reading More Action on Issues About Lowest Unit Rates for Political Parties and Joint Fundraising Committees After Supreme Court Decision – Where Do These Actions Leave the Broadcaster?
  • The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced that the FCC, in coordination with FEMA, will conduct a nationwide
…
  • The FCC announced that September 24 is the deadline for paying the 2026 annual regulatory fees which were set by
…

It is time for our look at September’s regulatory dates and deadlines to which broadcasters should be paying attention, and the deadline that probably is most important to all commercial broadcasters is not yet known.  That, of course, is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees, which must be made before the federal government’s October 1 start of the new fiscal year.  The FCC on Friday announced the amount of those fees, and we expect that this coming week, the payment window will be set, and the FCC will issue fee filing guides for all the industries regulated by the FCC – including a Media Bureau filing guide for broadcasters.  Stay alert for those announcements. 

Later in the month is the filing window for broadcasters to submit their Auction 114 “short-form” construction permit applications necessary to participate in the action of 132 construction permits for new FM stations, (see the list of available channels here).  The filing window opens at 12:00 p.m. ET on September 14 and closes at 6:00 p.m. ET on September 30.  Bidding is scheduled to begin on February 2, 2027.  These “short-form” applications on FCC Form 175 are necessary to participate in the auction.  Among the information required from an applicant in the Form 175 is the identification of which of the 132 vacant allotments they intend to bid on, any bidding credits for which they may be eligible, and certain ownership information.  Applicants may also specify specific coordinates for tower sites that an applicant plans to use for any channel to protect that site from being precluded by subsequent applications by other FM stations.  For more on the process, see our article here and the FCC’s instructions for auction participation here.  In addition, the FCC just released a Small Entity Compliance Guide summarizing the requirements and procedures for the upcoming Auction.

Continue Reading September 2026 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – FCC Regulatory Fees, Auction 114 Short-Form Applications and Filing Freeze, Deadline for Implementation of EAS Security Practices, LUC Window for the November Election and More

Last week, we wrote about the appeal pending in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reviewing the Public Notice issued by the FCC’s Media Bureau which “reminded” broadcasters that they had to extend Lowest Unit Charges to political advertising not only from candidates but also to advertising from joint fundraising committees and political parties whose advertising was authorized by a federal candidate.  An appeal was filed by a group of Democratic candidates who argued that the purported “reminder” was in fact new law which, these candidates claim was not justified by governing laws.  In our last article, we suggested that broadcasters be on alert, as a Court decision on the Democrats appeal could come quickly.  It did!  On Tuesday, the Court issued its ruling and, in a 2 to 1 decision, determined that the Public Notice did not correctly interpret the Communications Act and that its extension of LUC to these non-candidate groups was “for naught.” 

The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee almost immediately filed an emergency motion for stay of the Court’s decision, but on August 27 the Court denied the motion and issued the Court’s mandate, meaning that the FCC Public Notice no longer has any effect.  Thus, barring a stay of the 4th Circuit’s decision by the Supreme Court (where the Republican parties have said that they will next go for relief from the 4th Circuit decision), it appears that, for the upcoming general election, stations will not be bound by the Public Notice’s extension of LUC to parties and joint fundraising committees but could instead limit those rates to candidates and their own principal campaign committees.

Continue Reading 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Rejects FCC Media Bureau’s Extension of LUC to Ads by Political Parties and Joint Fundraising Committees – What Comes Next? 
  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau released an EEO Audit Notice targeting 400 radio and TV stations for review of their EEO
…