AM Radio

Subscribe to AM Radio via RSS

All this year, the FCC has been busy processing applications by AM broadcasters to buy an FM translator or a translator construction permit, and to move the translator as much as 250 miles to rebroadcast an AM station. We wrote about the Commission’s rules for these translator moves, as set out in December…

Another month has started – and it is one with regulatory dates for broadcasters. All broadcasters, commercial and noncommercial, have an obligation to complete their Quarterly Issues Programs lists and place them into their public inspection filed by October 10. For TV stations and large-market commercial radio, that means that these lists need to be in the online public file by that date (see our article here about the online public file for radio). For TV stations, the 10th also brings the obligation to submit Quarterly Children’s Television Reports on Form 398 to the FCC (as the 10th falls on a Federal holiday, you may be able to file on the 11th, but consult your legal advisor for details on that deadline).

For stations in Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, American Samoa, Guam, the Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands that are part of employment units with 5 or more full-time employees (30 hours a week or more), EEO public inspection file reports should have been included in their public inspection file by October 1. For Radio Station Employment Units with 11 or more full-time employees in Iowa and Missouri and Television Employment Units with five or more full-time employees in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, Mid-Term EEO Reports on FCC Form 397 should also have been filed at the FCC by October 1. See our article here on the obligation to submit Mid-Term EEO Reports.
Continue Reading October Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Quarterly Issues Programs Lists and Children’s Television Reports, EEO Obligations, Noncommercial Biennial Ownership Reports, and Incentive Auction Comment Deadlines

At the FCC’s open meeting last week, the Commission adopted new policies for assessing and computing foreign ownership of broadcast companies – particularly such ownership in public companies. The Commission’s Report and Order on this matter is dense reading, dealing with how companies assess compliance with the rules which limit foreign ownership to 20% of a broadcast licensee and 25% of a holding company unless there is a finding by the FCC that the public interest is not harmed by a greater foreign ownership interest. The rules adopted last week were principally an outgrowth of the petition for declaratory ruling filed by Pandora which sought FCC approval, in connection with its acquisition of a radio station, for foreign ownership of greater than 25%. Pandora did not file such a petition because its foreign ownership exceeded that percentage, but instead because, based on the FCC methodology in use at the time, Pandora could not prove that it was in compliance (see our summary of the Pandora petition here). The new rules adopted last week essentially reverse the presumption to which Pandora had to comply – rather than assuming that there was a compliance issue because a company cannot prove that its foreign ownership was less than 25%, the FCC will now conclude that there is an issue only where a company, based on knowledge either that it has or should have, actually knows that there it has a foreign ownership compliance problem.

The order requires that public companies regularly take steps to assess their owners to determine if there are potential foreign ownership issues. A public company should know who certain shareholders are, either because they are insiders (e.g. officers and directors) or because they are otherwise known to the company (e.g. through proxy fights, shareholder lawsuits or because they are in some way doing business with the company). Other shareholders can be determined through an array of filings made at the SEC – including filings made when a shareholder exceeds holdings of 5% of the stock of a company, and other filings made by companies that manage more than $100 million in assets who are required to report on their stockholdings. In addition, there are other public sources of information about funds and other investment companies that buy the stock of broadcast companies, from prospectuses to Internet news stories. Public broadcast companies need to monitor all of these sources of information to see whether they potentially have a problem with foreign ownership. The FCC did not require that these companies take other measures that had been used in the past or suggested in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding (about which we wrote here).
Continue Reading FCC Updates Foreign Ownership Compliance Policies for Broadcast Companies

Bars and Restaurants, to make their businesses more attractive to customers, often feature music or video, often broadcast radio or TV.  We wrote about the issues for businesses that play the radio on their premises here.  This week, Landslide, the magazine of the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Division, published an article that…

Tomorrow, September 27, is the deadline for commercial broadcasters to submit their annual regulatory fees. We wrote about those fees and this deadline here and here. Don’t forget to get them in by the deadline, as the failure to file on time will result in processing holds on any subsequent application that your…

The FCC’s Order released at the end of August deciding the issues in its Quadrennial Review of its ownership rules is over 100 pages long. The full document, with the dissents from the Republican Commissioners, required regulatory impact statements and similar routine attachments totals 199 pages. The Order addresses many issues. For TV, it declines to change the local ownership rules, readopts the decision to make Joint Sales Agreements into attributable interests (thus effectively banning them in many markets, though making some tweaks to the grandfathering of existing JSAs), and adopts new rules for reporting shared services agreements. The Order retains the newspaper-broadcast and radio-television cross-ownership rules. It takes limited new steps to encourage minority ownership (principally re-adopting the rule that allowed small businesses to acquire and extend expiring construction permits for new stations and to buy certain distressed properties, see our article about that old rule here), but does not adopt any racial or gender preferences for broadcast ownership. It also ends consideration of using TV channels 5 and 6 for the migration of AM radio and other new audio services including those targeted to new entrants into broadcast ownership (see one of our articles about that proposal here). And it rejects most proposals to change the radio ownership rules. Today, with the NAB Radio Show just two days away, we will look closer at the radio rules, and will cover many of these other aspects of the decision in coming days.

Perhaps the biggest “ask” for changes in the rules came from numerous radio groups that requested changes in the “subcaps” that apply to radio ownership. For instance, in the largest radio markets, one owner can hold up to 8 stations, but only 5 can be in any one service (AM or FM). Some parties had hoped to be able to own more FM stations in a market, particularly given the growing levels of competition in the audio marketplace from satellite and online radio. Some AM owners looked to hold more than the current maximum number of AMs in a market as a way to provide economies of scale that might help to preserve and strengthen the struggling AM radio industry. The Commission rejected such changes.
Continue Reading FCC’s Decision on the Quadrennial Review of the Multiple Ownership Rules – Part 1 – Radio Issues

September is one of those unusual months, where there are no regular filing dates for EEO public inspection file reports, quarterly issues programs lists or children’s television reports.  With the unusual start to the month with Labor Day being so late, and the lack of routine deadlines, we didn’t get our usual monthly highlights of upcoming regulatory dates posted as the month began.  While we didn’t do it early, we actually have not missed the many regulatory deadlines and important dates about which broadcasters need to take note this month.

Several are of particular importance for virtually all broadcasters.  As we wrote here and here, Annual Regulatory Fees for all commercial broadcasters are due by September 27.  Any commercial broadcaster that cumulatively owes more than $500 must file its fees by that date – and the fee filing system is already open.  Note that most noncommercial entities are excused from fee filings.
Continue Reading September Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: EAS Test, Reg Fees, Lowest Unit Rates, Incentive Auction Stage 2

The FCC today released a series of public notices setting September 27 as the deadline for the filing of Annual Regulatory fees.  We wrote here about the FCC Order setting the amount of those fees, and reminding TV stations, even ones looking to surrender their licenses in the incentive auction, that they must still pay those fees by the upcoming deadline.  These notices also announced that the fee filing system is now up and operating, so fees can be paid at any time.  Finally, the notices talk about some of the details of the fee filing process, covering who is eligible and how exemptions from fee obligations can be obtained.

One of the Public Notices sets out instructions for requests for waivers and deferrals of the fee obligations.  Any party thinking about filing such a request needs to carefully follow the instructions and fully document the reasons for the waiver, as the failure to fully follow the rules will result in penalties and interest.  In fact, to avoid the potential for penalties and interest, the FCC suggests paying the fee and asking for a refund, rather than asking for a deferral and waiver of the fee obligations. 
Continue Reading Regulatory Fees Due By September 27 – Fee Filing Guides and Instructions for Waivers or Deferrals Released by FCC

Right as everyone was set to enjoy the last glimmer of summer over the long weekend, the FCC issued its Report and Order on the regulatory fees for 2016.  The FCC adopted all the fees for broadcast stations as proposed in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (about which we wrote about here) with some…

In the last few minutes, the FCC has released its order on the Quadrennial Review of its multiple ownership rules, about which we wrote last week. The decision is available here, and includes dissenting opinions from the two Republican commissioners and a concurring statement from Commissioner Clyburn. In total, the text is 199…