EEO Compliance/Diversity

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As 2024 comes to an end, 2025 is beginning to come into focus – a new year that will likely bring big changes to the Washington broadcast regulation scene with the inauguration of a new President and installation of a new FCC chair who has already promised to move forward with policies very different than those of the current administration (see our discussion here and here).  But while we are waiting for the big changes that may occur, there are many more mundane dates and issues to which broadcasters need to pay attention.  Let’s look at what is coming up in the next month.

Broadcasters need to remember that January 10 is the deadline for all full power and Class A TV stations, and full power AM and FM radio stations, both commercial and noncommercial, to upload to their Online Public Inspection Files their Quarterly Issues/Program lists for the fourth quarter of 2024.  The lists should identify the issues of importance to the station’s community and the programs that the station aired between October 1 and December 31, 2024, that addressed those issues.  These lists must be timely uploaded to your station’s OPIF, as the untimely uploads of these documents probably have resulted in more fines in the last decade than for any other FCC rule violation.  As you finalize your lists, do so carefully and accurately, as they are the only official records of how your station is serving the public and addressing the needs and interests of its community.  See our article here for more on the importance of the Quarterly Issues/Programs list obligation.Continue Reading January 2025 Regulatory Updates for Broadcasters – Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, Children’s Television Programming Reporting, Expansion of Audio Description Requirements, Political Windows, 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.

  • Congress failed to include the AM For Every Vehicle Act in their year-end omnibus spending legislation, meaning that the bill
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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.

  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit announced that oral argument in the appeal of the FCC’s reinstatement
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President-elect Trump this week selected sitting FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to be the new Chairman of the FCC starting on Inauguration Day, January 20.  As a sitting Commissioner, Carr can become permanent Chair immediately – no Senate confirmation is necessary.  Current FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced that, as is traditional, she will not only step down from her position as Chair on January 20 and will also leave the Commission on that date – leaving one empty seat on the FCC to be filled by the new President (to permanently fill that vacancy,  Senate confirmation is needed).  Until that third Republican seat is filled, Chairman Carr will be operating with a Commission split 2-2 on party lines, suggesting that initially any major Commission actions will need to be ones that are bipartisan.  However, when Commissioner Carr becomes Chair, he can appoint the heads of the Bureaus and Divisions at the FCC that do most of the routine processing of applications and issuing most of the day-to-day interpretations of policy.  As Carr has been at the FCC since 2012 and has served as a Commissioner since 2017, one would assume that he already has in mind people to fill these positions – and thus his team should be able to hit the ground running.  What policies should broadcasters and those in the broader media world be looking for from a Carr administration at the FCC?

Immediately after the election, we wrote this article about several of the specific FCC issues where we anticipated that a Republican administration would move forward with policies different than those that have been pursued by the current administration.  Since his nomination, we have seen nothing that would suggest that the issues that we highlighted earlier in the month will not be on the Carr agenda.  In our last article, we noted that the FCC could be expected to take a different tact on the reinstatement of FCC Form 395-B, the EEO form that would require broadcasters to break down their employees by employment position and report on the gender, race, and ethnicity of the employees in each employment category.  In one of his first tweets on X after his nomination was announced, Carr said that the FCC would no longer be prioritizing “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) efforts – seemingly confirming, among other things, that a reversal of the action on the Form 395-B could be in the works (which could easily be done, as there are pending Petitions for Reconsideration of the reinstatement along with pending appeals in the courts).Continue Reading Brendan Carr to Become Next FCC Chair – What is Next for Regulation Affecting Broadcasters? 

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.

  • The National Association of Broadcasters denounced recent threats to revoke broadcast station licenses for political reasons, stating: “The threat from
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On Friday, the FCC released another EEO audit notice for 2024.  The FCC’s Public Notice, audit letter, and the list of the 150 radio and TV stations selected for audit is available here.  Those stations, and the station employment units (commonly owned or controlled stations serving the same area sharing at least one employee) with which they are associated, must provide to the FCC (by uploading the information to their online public inspection file) their last two years of EEO Annual Public File reports, as well as backing data to show that the station in fact did everything that was required under the FCC rules.  The response to this audit is due to be uploaded to the public file of affected stations by December 2, 2024. Additional time to respond, to January 16, 2025, was given to stations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia impacted by the disruption caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.  The audit notice says that stations audited in 2022 or 2023, or whose license renewals were filed after October 1, 2022, can ask the FCC for further instructions, possibly exempting them from the audit because of the recent FCC review of their EEO performance. 

With the release of this audit, and last year’s $25,000 fine proposed for some Kansas radio stations that had not fully met their EEO obligations (see our article here), it is important to review your EEO compliance even if your stations are not subject to this audit.  The FCC has promised to randomly audit approximately 5% of all broadcast stations each year. As the response (and the audit letter itself) must be uploaded to the public file, it can be reviewed not only by the FCC, but also by anyone else with an internet connection anywhere, at any time.  The Kansas fine, plus a recent $26,000 fine imposed on Cumulus Media for a late upload of a single EEO Annual Public File Report (see our article here), and the FCC’s recent decision to bring back EEO Form 395 reporting on the race and gender of all station employees (see our article here), shows how seriously the FCC takes EEO obligations.Continue Reading FCC Announces Second EEO Audit of 2024 – 150 Radio and TV Stations Targeted

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.

  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau released its second EEO audit notice for 2024.  Audited stations and their station employment units (commonly
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October is, on paper, another busy month of regulatory deadlines for broadcasters.  But there is again the looming possibility of a federal government shutdown beginning October 1 if Congress fails to fund the government for the coming year (or pass a “continuing resolution” to allow government agencies to function at their current levels).  While as of today there are reports of a plan to extend funding through December, until a continuing resolution is passed, the threat remains.  If a shutdown does occur, the FCC, the FTC, and the Copyright Office may have to pause their operations which may result in some of the regulatory deadlines discussed below being delayed.  However, in some cases agencies have leftover funding to keep them functioning for a few extra days.  Stay tuned to see if any of the dates below have to be rescheduled. [Update – 9/26/2024, 9:00 AM – a continuing resolution extending government funding through December 20 was passed late yesterday by both the House and the Senate averting, for now, the shutdown about which we were concerned. Thus, the deadlines listed below are in effect as scheduled]

Assuming this recurring issue is resolved, let’s look at some of the October dates and deadlines, starting with the routine dates of importance to broadcasters. 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.  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 can lead to FCC fines (see our article here about a recent $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).Continue Reading October 2024 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Quarterly Issues Programs Lists, Annual EEO Public File Reports, ETRS Form One, Comment Deadlines, and More