Digital Television

Subscribe to Digital Television via RSS

The FCC just took another step toward the TV incentive auction, and set one of the first of what will no doubt be many deadlines for stations to meet as part of the process. The FCC released a list of all stations that they find to be eligible to participate in the incentive auction. These are also the stations that will be protected in the post-auction repacking of the television spectrum if their licenses are not surrendered as part of the auction process.  The Commission also released a public notice explaining the next steps in the process and setting the July 9 filing deadline. The public notice sets out a process for any licensee that believes that its station was incorrectly left off the list of eligible stations to request that its station be included – so all station owners should carefully review the list now.

The Public Notice asks licensees to certify on a new FCC form, the “Pre-Auction Technical Certification Form,” FCC Form 2100 Schedule 381, that the information in the FCC’s technical databases regarding their station is accurate or, if it is not, to file corrections and explanations as to why the information is wrong. This new form will be filed in the FCC’s new LMS electronic filing system, and is due from all TV stations eligible to participate in the auction by July 9.  In addition, each station needs to provide information about the specifics of the facilities with which they operate – including specifics on their transmitter, antenna and tower.  This information will be used by the FCC to evaluate how to repack stations, taking into account their coverage and the costs associated with replacing the station’s equipment after the repacking.
Continue Reading Incentive Auction Next Step – FCC Identifies Auction-Eligible Stations and Requires All TV Stations to File Information on Technical Facilities by July 9

June brings some standard obligations for broadcasters in a number of states with anniversaries of their license renewal filing, plus the return of an obligation that we have not seen in 4 years- the obligations of radio stations in certain states to file an FCC Form 397 Mid-Term EEO Report. In addition to these routine regulatory deadlines, comment dates on certain FCC proceedings, a new CALM Act deadline, and some decisions for which broadcasters should be watching are among the regulatory actions that we can expect this coming month.

First, let’s look at the standard recurring obligations. By June 1, Annual EEO Public Inspection File Reports need to be placed in the public inspection files (including the online files of TV stations) of stations that are part of a station employment unit with five or more full-time (30 hours per week) employees that are licensed to communities in these states: Arizona, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.  As we wrote in more detail yesterday, June 1 also brings the obligation of radio stations that are part of employment units with 11 or more full-time employees, and are located in Maryland, DC, Virginia or West Virginia to file their Form 397, EEO Mid-Term Report. Every other month for the next four years we will see a similar obligation arise for a group of radio or TV stations in states that have celebrated the 4th anniversary of the filing of their license renewal applications.
Continue Reading June Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – EEO Public File Reports and Form 397, CALM Act Compliance Obligations, Incentive Auction Actions, Comments on Reg Fees and LPFM Rules, and More

The FCC today released a Public Notice announcing that they are suspending the September digital conversion deadline for LPTV stations.  Given the upcoming incentive auction, it seems clear that it makes no sense to force an LPTV station to go digital, when it could be knocked off the air or forced to change channels a…

The FCC two years ago adopted a rule requiring that television stations that provide emergency information visually (e.g. through open captions or crawls), outside of news programming, convert that emergency information into audio and run that audio on SAP channels (secondary audio programming channels – usually used for Spanish language translations of English-language programs). That…

Drones are coming up more and more often as I travel the country to speak to broadcaster groups. It has become a hot issue, both at the Federal level and in many states. I asked two attorneys in my firm who are watching this issue to do an update on where things stand. Bob Kirk (bio here) and Rachel Wolkowitz (here) have provided the following update on where things stand on the Federal level:

Broadcasters increasingly are looking at drones, or “unmanned aircraft systems” (“UAS”) in FAA parlance, as a more cost-effective option for gathering aerial video and photos. After all, small drones can be used to gather aerial news footage for a fraction of the cost associated with using a helicopter. However, before going out and flying one, be warned, the FAA deems newsgathering a “commercial” use currently prohibited under its rules.

In February, the FAA proposed new rules that would open the skies up to small drones for some limited uses. Congress has ordered the FAA to integrate drones in the national airspace by September 2015, but most experts believe that the deadline will not be met. Indeed, the consensus is that it will take approximately two years to compile a record, review the comments, and adopt final rules for small drones, which the FAA says is the first step in letting many types of UAS take flight.
Continue Reading Will Drones Soon Become an Effective Tool for Broadcasters?

The FCC continues to take its show on the road, announcing incentive auction seminars for TV broadcasters in several new cities. At these seminars, FCC officials meet with TV broadcasters in a general meeting to outline the mechanics of the proposed incentive auction to reclaim a portion of the TV band to be resold to wireless users for wireless broadband purposes, and the subsequent “repacking” when remaining TV stations will be assigned channels on which to operate in a smaller TV band. The new seminars are to be held at the following locations:

March 30, 2015: Cincinnati, OH

March 31, 2015: Columbus, OH

April 1, 2015: Cleveland, OH

April 7, 2015: Louisville, KY

April 8, 2015: Indianapolis, IN

April 14, 2015: Las Vegas, NV (in conjunction with the NAB Show)

TV broadcasters should contact the FCC to make reservations to attend. At the same time, broadcasters can schedule a private meeting with the FCC officials to talk about the likely opening bids to be offered to stations to surrender their frequencies and other details specific to the situation faced by their stations.
Continue Reading FCC Announces New Locations for TV Incentive Auction Seminars and Private Meetings

The FCC has extended the Reply Comment deadline in its proceeding looking at whether to apply some or all of the regulations applicable to multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs – cable and satellite TV) to over-the-top video providers who provide multiple channels of video programming in a linear fashion (i.e. like a cable system, with…

In a decision released yesterday, the FCC renewed the licenses of three TV stations held by large broadcast groups, rejecting Petitions to Deny filed by a citizen’s organization arguing that the children’s educational and informational programming run by these stations was not sufficiently educational or informational to meet the requirement that stations run three hours per week of educational and informational programing. The licensees were able to present evidence that these programs where developed with expert guidance to insure that they in fact presented valuable messages to children and, based on that evidence (plus the fact that the challenged programing had been replaced by other non-challenged programming), the renewals were granted. However, the FCC warned stations to be careful in their assessments of the educational nature of children’s programs, as the FCC can sanction stations where that judgment is not deemed to be reasonable.

Every television station has an obligation to present an average of at least three hours per week of educational and informational programming directed to children who are 16 or under. That three hour requirement attaches to each programming stream broadcast by the station (including each digital subchannel – though the obligation can be met if all of the educational and informational programming is done on the main program stream of the station – so a news and weather subchannel does not need to do educational and informational programming if the main program channel does 6 weekly hours of such programming). Such programing is to be designed to serve the “cognitive/intellectual or social/emotional needs” of children. Obviously, what meets those needs can be a matter of debate.
Continue Reading FCC Renews Television Station Licenses after Challenges on the Educational Nature of Children’s Programming – With a Warning to Other Broadcasters

As we accelerate toward next year’s planned TV incentive auction, it seems like there is news almost every day of interest to television broadcasters who may be affected by the FCC’s efforts to clear TV spectrum so that it can be repurposed for wireless broadband use and sold to wireless companies and the subsequent repacking of remaining TV stations into a smaller TV band. Some of the broadcasters most directly affected by the auction and repacking will be LPTV stations who, thus far, have been promised no compensation should their operations be displaced by the repacking of the TV band, and offered no promises that they will have channels on which they can operate after the auction. The issues for LPTV stations, and the FCC’s proposals to deal with them, were to be addressed at a webinar on Tuesday, but the session was cancelled when the Federal government shut down because of snow in the DC area. The FCC yesterday announced that the webinar has been rescheduled for next Tuesday, February 24 – details in the Public Notice here. We wrote about the FCC’s rulemaking looking at what to do with LPTV stations after the auction here.

One of the big questions that many broadcasters have asked since the FCC rolled out the recent Greenhill Report (see our article here), setting out expected opening prices that will be offered to TV stations to surrender their TV channel, was how many stations could actually expect to be bought out in any market. The NAB released a study yesterday, suggesting that in some markets, it is very likely that the FCC will not need to buy out any stations, whether the auction tries to clear 120 MHz (20 TV channels, the maximum that the FCC has looked at clearing) or only 84 MHz (which some have thought was a more realistic goal). On the other hand, in several large markets and in markets in congested spectrum areas near some of those large markets, the FCC may need to get more than half of the stations in those markets to give up their licenses. The NAB computations are taken from FCC data, and the NAB provides many disclaimers that this information may change as auction plans change over time as different assumptions are made, and also are very dependent on the number of participants in adjoining markets. But the study is nevertheless one that gives some broadcasters an idea of how likely it is for them to really need to be an auction participant. See the NAB explanation of their procedures here, and the complete market-by-market chart of likely TV clearing needs here.
Continue Reading More Incentive Auction News – LPTV Webinar Postponed; NAB Study Looks At How Many Stations Per Market Will Need to Surrender Licenses for Successful Auction; More Auction Seminars Scheduled