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Each year, the FCC is required by Congress to collect regulatory fees to cover the costs of its operations. All entities regulated by the FCC contribute to the amount necessary to cover the FCC’s costs – fees being allocated by the proportion of the total number of FCC employees needed to regulate a particular service. Before requiring the payment of the fees (which is usually done in September, just before the October 1 start of a new fiscal year for the government), the FCC must ask for comments on its proposed allocation of the fees among all those that it regulates. That notice (here), asking for comments on a few proposed changes, including a few changes for broadcasters, was released yesterday. Comments are due June 22 and replies on July 7.

The changes proposed for broadcasters include a reallocation of the fees imposed on stations in top markets. Last year, the FCC imposed, for both radio and TV stations in the biggest markets, higher fees through a new category of fees for stations in the very largest markets. By charging higher fees to larger stations in larger markets, the FCC believed that it could offer regulatory relief through lower fees on those least able to pay – the smaller stations in smaller markets. The FCC now proposes to further adjust the fee burden, allocating even more to stations that serve the largest populations. In yesterday’s order, the FCC offers two tables of potential fees for radio stations. Those tables are set out below. In the first, the FCC sets out proposed fees with this new allocation of the regulatory fee burden. In the second, they allocate the fees due from radio this year, using the same proportions as used last year. They ask for comments as to which better serves the public interest.
Continue Reading FCC Proposes Regulatory Fees to Be Paid Later This Year – Questions about Allocation of Radio Fees, TV Satellite Stations, and Small Entity Exceptions

As expected, at its monthly open meeting yesterday, the FCC started two proceedings of particular importance to broadcasters. The first looks at the abolition of the main studio rules. The second asks for comments on all of the other rules affecting broadcasters and other media companies to see which are ripe for appeal. For the most part, the proposals as adopted mirrored the draft orders released for public review back at the end of April, which we summarized here.

The proposal to review all media rules – referred to as the Modernization of Media Regulation – will look at all media-related FCC rules with the idea of eliminating or modifying those that no longer make sense in the modern media environment. Only the multiple ownership rules, already under review in separate proceedings (see our posts here, here and here) are excluded from this review. Comment dates for proposals to change specific rules are due by July 5, with replies due August 4. The two Republican commissioners supported this proposal. Commissioner Clyburn, the FCC’s lone Democrat, dissented from the adoption of the Public Notice launching the inquiry, not necessarily because she is opposed to review of existing rules, but because she felt that the notice presupposes that the public interest can only be achieved by abolishing rules that limit industry operations. She suggests that many FCC rules remain important – including EEO rules, Biennial Ownership Reports, and certain rules governing access to cable programming. The Republican commissioners, on the other hand, point to the efficiencies that can be gained by abolishing rules that no longer make sense, or which require filings that serve no particular purpose (see Commissioner O’Rielly’s statement here). No doubt, these differing perceptions of the rules will be reflected in comments filed by various parties in this proceeding.
Continue Reading FCC Officially Starts Proceedings to Abolish Main Studio Rule and Review All Other Broadcast Rules

At the NAB Convention, Chairman Pai announced that the promised windows for AM stations to apply for new FM translators would open this summer (see our article here). It now looks as if that promise is about to become a reality as on Friday the FCC added to its list of “items on circulation” a Public Notice announcing that window. Each week, the FCC updates this list of items on circulation (see the list here). These “items” are the orders that have been written by the FCC staff and are now being reviewed by the Commissioners themselves.  Once these items are reviewed and approved, often in a matter of days or a few weeks, they are released to the public. So it looks like the formal announcement on the dates for the windows will be coming very soon.

If adopted and released to the public by the FCC in the next few weeks, that announcement will likely set a date for filing for these translators – probably opening the first window about 60 days after the notice is released. Applications would then be filed in the window set for these filings. This could mean that the first window could open as early as July.  The Commission will be opening two windows. The first will be for Class C and D AM stations. Once those applications have been filed, a second window will open for Class A and B AM stations. Only AM stations that did not file for a translator relying on the 250 mile waivers available last year (see our article here) are eligible to apply for translators in these upcoming windows. Stations that acquired translators through other means can still apply for a new translator in this window. However, only one new translator will be available in this window for each AM eligible to file.
Continue Reading Announcement of FCC Window for AM Stations to File For New FM Translators Coming Very Soon

The FCC recently issued a declaratory ruling (which we summarized here) addressing the requirement that broadcasters widely disseminate information about all of their job openings in such a way as to reach all of the groups within their communities. The recent FCC decision stated that a broadcaster can now rely solely on online sources to meet the wide dissemination obligation. In the past, the sole reliance on online sources would have brought a fine from the FCC, so this is a big change for broadcasters – one which recognizes the realities in the world today as to where people actually go to find information about job openings .

This decision does not end all other EEO obligations imposed by the FCC rules. The Indiana Broadcasters Association recently asked me 5 questions about that new decision to highlight some of the other obligations that still arise under the FCC’s EEO rules. Here is that discussion of the continuing obligations under the EEO rules:

  1.  The FCC recently issued a Declaratory Ruling about how Job Openings should be posted.  What’s changing?

The FCC is now permitting broadcasters (and cable companies) to meet their obligation to widely disseminate information about their job openings solely through the use of online recruitment sources. In the past, broadcasters were fined if they did not, in addition to online sources, use recruitment sources such as community groups, employment agencies, educational institutions and newspapers to solicit candidates for virtually all open positions at any station. Under the FCC’s new ruling, a broadcaster can use online recruitment sources as their sole means of meeting their obligation to widely disseminate information about job openings, as long as the broadcaster reasonably believes that the online source or sources that it uses are sufficient to reach members of the diverse groups represented in its community.
Continue Reading 5 Questions on the Meaning of the FCC’s Recent Ruling on Online Recruiting – How Does it Change a Broadcaster’s EEO Obligations?

Earlier this week, we wrote about a number of proceedings affecting FM translators, including the Petition for Reconsideration (available here) of the FCC decision relaxing the rules governing the locations at which AM stations using FM translators to rebroadcast their signal can locate those translators (see our summary here). Notice of that…

For well over a decade, since the FM translator filing window of 2003, translators have been a controversial subject. While they have become more important to the broadcast ecosystem – especially as they now rebroadcast AM stations and HD-2 channels of FM stations – their use continues to be controversial, both because of the interference to other stations that is sometimes caused by new translators, and because of their perceived conflicts with LPFM applicants. With the recent announcement from FCC Chairman Pai that the first window for applications for new translators to serve AM stations that did not benefit from last year’s 250-mile waiver window will be accepted this summer, translators will only become more important to broadcasters (see the Chairman’s comments in his NAB speech, the text of which is here). Several recent actions indicate that policy issues dealing with translators will continue to be debated for at least the foreseeable future.

Two recent filings attempt to address the issue of interference between new or relocated translators and full-power stations. Issues arise from time to time, including some high-profile disputes in major markets, where new translators create, or are alleged to create, interference to full-power stations. Under the current FCC rules, any time a new or relocated translator creates interference to any regularly used FM signal, even outside of the usually protected contour of the full-power station, the translator is required to cease operations unless the interference can be remedied. In such situations, the translator licensee acknowledges the interference and changes facilities or channels to remedy it. But there are other cases where the reported interference objections have been challenged by the translator operator, as the alleged interference will occur far from the station claiming the interference, in areas where the translator operator suggests that no reliable FM signal from the protected station could really be received.
Continue Reading FM Translators Still Contentious – New Filing Window, Suggestions for Resolving Interference Complaints and a Request for Reconsideration of Relaxation of Rules on the Location of FM Translators for AM Stations

In his speech at the NAB Convention (available here), Chairman Pai promised to pursue a broadcast regulatory regime that made sense in today’s competitive media environment. He promised to move quickly to eliminate a number of the unnecessary broadcast rules, and specifically to repeal the main studio rule (see our articles here and here about the current requirements for the operation and staffing of the main studio).  Yesterday, the FCC took its first steps to quickly fulfill those promises, releasing two draft orders to be considered at its May 18 meeting, one to repeal the main studio rule and the second announcing the opening of a proceeding to review all of the other rules that govern broadcasters except the ownership rules that are already under consideration in other proceedings (see our posts here and here about some of the ownership rules already under review).

The draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking to eliminate the main studio rules asks a number of questions seeking support for the FCC’s tentative conclusion that the elimination of the main studio rule is in the public interest.  The NPRM asks questions and seeks information including:

  • how much money the elimination of the main studio rule would save stations,
  • the public interest benefits that would result from any monetary savings (e.g. better programming),
  • information about how often the main studio is currently visited by community members and why they visit,
  • information about how community members communicate with broadcasters with complaints or suggestions about broadcast operations,
  • whether stations can still serve the issues faced by their communities without having a physical presence,
  • whether abolition of the main studio rules in any way abrogates the station’s obligation to serve its local community that would undermine the FCC’s obligations under Section 307(b) of the Communications Act to allocate stations to communities that need service,
  • how the elimination of the rule would work in connection with the requirement that radio stations move their public file online (e.g. should an online public file be a precondition of abolishing the studio or can the paper file be maintained somewhere else if the studio rule is abolished before next March when the online public file is mandatory for all stations),
  • whether to continue to require that stations have a local phone number accessible to residents of their community of license, and
  • specific inquiries as to how Class A TV stations would meet their obligations to air local programs if they have no main studio.

Assuming the FCC adopts the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at the May 18 meeting, public comments on the proposal and the questions asked by the FCC will be 30 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register.  That would likely put comments in late June or early July, with reply comments 15 days later.
Continue Reading Making Good on Deregulation – FCC Proposes to Eliminate Main Studio Rules and Review All Other Broadcast Regulatory Requirements

Last year, the FCC made some modifications in its assessment of foreign ownership of companies with broadcast interests, relaxing some of their compliance rules to take account of the realities of the current public stock trading marketplace – realities that, using the FCC’s old policies, made determinations of the level of foreign ownership in any…

Prometheus Radio Project, an advocacy group which has been active in lobbying for the interests of LPFM applicants and licensees, has asked that the FCC stay the April 10 effective date of the new rules liberalizing the location in which FM translators serving AM stations can locate (see its petition here). We wrote about those new rules here and here. Prometheus alleges that the liberalization in the rules will restrict the areas in which LPFM stations can locate their transmitter sites if the sites from which they currently operate become unusable. Their allegation is that the moves by these translators will “box in” LPFM stations at their current site. Based on this alleged harm, Prometheus asks for a stay of the effective date of the new rule while they appeal its adoption.

The petition does not say how this phenomena of “boxing in” LPFM stations will occur simply because translators can be located at distances greater than currently authorized. The new rules do not authorize new FM translators, and (contrary to some broadcast trade press reports published today) they do not give broadcasters another opportunity to move translators great distances from their current locations. All they do is change the rules so that, instead of limiting FM translators to the areas where their 1 mv/m contour does not extend beyond the lesser of the AM station’s 2 mv/m contour or a circle 25 miles from the AM station, the translator can operate in any area where its contour does not extend the 1 mv/m beyond the greater of the 2 mv/m contour or 25 mile circle. The new rules do not increase the permitted power of translators or in any other way significantly change their preclusive effect. In short, who is to say whether a translator will impose greater restrictions on LPFMs from their current locations or from locations authorized under the new rules?
Continue Reading Request Filed with the FCC to Stay Effective Date of New Liberalized Rules on the Location of FM Translators for AM Stations