Discussion of FCC, copyright, advertising and other legal issues of importance to radio and television broadcasters and other media companies
Principal Editor: David O’Connor
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.
It’s a new year, and as has been our custom at the beginning of each year, we dust off the crystal ball and take a look at what we think may be some of the significant regulatory and legislative issues that broadcasters will be facing in 2025. This year, there is an extra layer of uncertainty given a new administration, both in the White House and at the FCC. Already, it appears that a new administration will bring new priorities – some barely on the radar in past years – to the top of the list of the issues that broadcasters will need to be carefully monitoring.
One of those issues has been a possible FCC review of the meaning of the “public interest” standard under which all broadcasters are governed. As we wrote when President-Elect Trump announced his pick for the new FCC Chair starting on Inauguration Day, Chair-Designate Brendan Carr has indicated that this public interest proceeding will be a high priority. In his opinion, broadcasters, or perhaps more specifically the news media, have suffered from an erosion of trust, and it has been his expressed opinion that a reexamination of the public interest standard might help to restore public trust. We noted in our article upon his selection that this is not the first time that there has been a re-examination of that standard. It has traditionally been difficult to precisely define what the standard means. In the coming days, we will be writing more about this issue. But suffice it to say that we are hopeful that any new examination does not lead to more paperwork obligations for broadcasters, as seemingly occurred whenever any broadcast issue was addressed by the current administration. As we note below, there are several paperwork burdens that we think may disappear in the new administration, so we are not expecting more paper – but we will all need to be carefully watching what develops from any re-examination of the public interest standard.Continue Reading Looking Into the Crystal Ball – What Legal and Policy Issues are Ahead for Broadcasters in 2025?
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.
With the election over, broadcasters and their Washington representatives are now trying to decipher what the next administration will have in store at the FCC and other government agencies that regulate the media. Already, the DC press is speculating about who will assume what positions in the government agencies that make these decisions. While those speculations will go on for weeks, we thought that we would look at some of the issues pending before the FCC affecting broadcasters that could be affected by a change in administration.
There are two issues presently before the courts where the current Republican Commissioners dissented from the decisions which led to the current appeals. The FCC’s December 2023 ownership decision (see our summary here) is being appealed by both radio and television interests, arguing that the FCC did not properly relax the existing ownership rules in light of competition from digital media, as required by Congress when it established the requirement for Quadrennial Reviews to review the impact of competition and assess whether existing radio and TV ownership rules remain “necessary” in the public interest. While briefs have already been filed in that case, it will be interesting to see how the new administration deals with the issues raised, as both sitting Republican Commissioners dissented, saying that the FCC should have considered digital competition in substantially relaxing those rules (see Carr dissent here and Simington Dissent here). Even if the change in administration does not change the Commission’s position in court, the 2022 Quadrennial Review has already been started (see our article here), so a new administration already has an open proceeding to revisit those rules.Continue Reading How FCC Regulation of Broadcasters May Change in a New Administration – Looking at the Pending Issues
With much of everyone’s focus on the outcome of the November 5 general election, broadcasters can’t forget the regulatory dates and deadlines in November and early December. While the dates and deadlines in November are lighter than in many other months, many routine deadlines do fall in early December, and even the upcoming month does have dates worthy of note.
The one broadly applicable deadline for AM stations that does fall early in the upcoming month is November 3, when Daylight Savings Time ends. AM daytime-only radio stations, Am stations with different daytime and nighttime patterns, and those operating with pre-sunrise and/or post-sunset authority should check their sign-on and sign-off times on their current FCC authorizations to ensure continued compliance with the FCC’s rules. Broadcasters need to note that all times listed in FCC licenses are stated in standard time, not daylight savings time even if it is in effect.
For television stations, there is a deadline later in the month. November 26 is the deadline for television stations to provide an aural description of visual but non-textual emergency information, such as maps or other graphic displays, conveyed outside of station newscasts. This would include maps showing severe weather and other graphic depictions of emergency information during non-news programming. Since 2013, stations must make textual information about emergency conditions that occur during non-newscast video programming (such as textual crawls about emergency conditions) audibly accessible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired through having the textual information presented aurally on the station’s SAP channel – the secondary audio channel. The 2013 rules required that visual maps and other non-textual information also be described on SAP channels but, as we discussed in articles here, here, and here, the FCC has extended this deadline numerous times because of the unavailability of workable technology that can automatically perform the functions required by the rule. By the November 26 deadline, stations will either need to provide aural information about non-textual emergency information that runs outside of a newscast, or avoid airing such graphical alerts during non-news programming, or hope that there are new requests for FCC relief before the looming deadline.Continue Reading November 2024 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: AM Stations Need to Adjust to the End of Daylight Savings Time, Deadline for Aural Description of Visual Emergency Alerts for TV, Final Rules for FM Zonecasting, and More
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.
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
