Emergency Communications

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Last week, just before Thanksgiving, the FCC released the tentative agenda for its December meeting. From that agenda, it appears that the meeting will be an important one for broadcasters and other media companies. Already, the press has spent incredible amounts of time focusing on one item, referred to as “Restoring Internet Freedom” by the FCC, and “net neutrality” by many other observers. The FCC’s draft of the Order that they will be considering at their December meeting is available here.

The one pure broadcast item on the agenda is the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, looking to determine if the FCC should amend the cap limiting one TV station owner to stations reaching no more than 39% of the national audience. The FCC asks a series of questions in its draft notice of proposed rulemaking, available here, including whether it has the power to change the cap, or if the power is exclusively that of Congress. The FCC promised to initiate this proceeding when it reinstated the UHF discount (see our articles here and here). In that proceeding, the FCC determined that the UHF discount should not have been abolished without a thorough examination of the national ownership cap – an examination that will be undertaken in this new proceeding if the NPRM is adopted at the December meeting.
Continue Reading December FCC Meeting to be an Important One for Broadcasters and Other Media Companies

While November is an odd numbered month in which there are no deadlines for EEO Public File or Mid-term Reports, and it is not the beginning of a new calendar quarter when Quarterly Issues Programs Reports are added to a station’s public file and Quarterly Children’s Television Reports are filed with the FCC, that does not mean that there are no dates of interest to broadcasters this month. In fact, there are numerous policy issues that will be decided this month, and filing dates both for television broadcasters and AM broadcasters seeking FM translators for their stations.

The biggest policy dates will be November 16, when the FCC holds its monthly meeting, with two major broadcast items on the agenda. As we wrote here, the FCC will be considering both the adoption of ATSC 3.0, the new television transmission system promising better mobile reception and more data transmission capabilities for TV stations, and the reconsideration of last year’s decision on the ownership rules, where the FCC is expected to repeal the broadcast-newspaper and radio television cross-ownership rules and loosen the restrictions on TV duopolies in markets where such duopolies cannot now be formed.
Continue Reading November Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Including Broadcast Ownership, ATSC, Main Studio, EAS, TV Improvements and FM Translator Settlements

The United States Court of Appeals yesterday issued an order denying the appeal of an FCC order that rejected a requirement that multilingual EAS alerts be provided in every market.  We wrote about the FCC’s proceeding here and here. The Court upheld the FCC’s decision as reasonable, finding that the Commission did not have enough evidence to determine how such alerts should be implemented on a nationwide basis, and noting that the FCC was still reviewing whether to adopt requirements that broadcasters provide alerts in languages other than English in the future. That decision should serve as a reminder that in the FCC order rejecting the call to mandate multilingual EAS alerts in all markets, the Commission did call for broadcasters to supply more information – information that is due in early November.

In 2016, when the FCC rejected the imposition of multilingual EAS alerts, they imposed an obligation on broadcast stations to report to their State Emergency Coordinating Committees (“SECC”) information about what the stations are doing to implement multilingual EAS – including a description of any plans they have to implement such alerts in the future, and whether or not there are significant populations of non-English speaking groups in their communities that would need such alerts. We wrote about that obligation here. The one year deadline would seem to be November 3, one year after the FCC’s order was published in the Federal Register (though an FCC small-business compliance guide summarizing the obligations, released in August, available here, states on the top of page 3 that the deadline is November 6).  In any event, given the Court’s decision relying on the FCC gathering information about the provision of emergency alerts to non-English speaking communities, it is important that stations provide their SECCs by early November.  The FCC’s Small Business Compliance Guide is a good summary of what is required.
Continue Reading Court Rejects Appeal of FCC Decision Not to Mandate Multilingual EAS Alerts – Highlighting Requirement that Broadcasters Report To Their SECC in Early November About Emergency Information to Non-English Speakers

With the recent hurricanes and last night’s tragedy in Las Vegas, the FCC Public Notice issued last week reminding all video programmers of the importance of making emergency information accessible to all viewers seems very timely. The public notice serves as a good refresher on all of the obligations of video programmers designed to make emergency information available to members of the viewing audience who may have auditory or visual impairments that may make this information harder to receive. As the FCC also reminds readers of its notice of the ways in which to file complaints against video programming distributors who do not follow the rules, TV broadcasters need to be extremely sensitive to all of these requirements.

What are these obligations? These are some of the obligations highlighted by the FCC’s reminder:

  • For persons who are visually impaired, rules require that emergency information that is visually provided in a newscast also be aurally described in the main audio channel of the station.
  • When emergency information is provided outside of a newscast (e.g. in a crawl during entertainment programming), that information must be accompanied by an aural tone and then an audio version of the emergency information must be broadcast on a secondary audio channel (SAP channel) of a TV station at least twice. See our articles here, here and here about this obligation.
  • For persons who are deaf or hard of hearing, the Commission requires that emergency information provided in the audio portion of a broadcast also be presented visually, through methods including captioning, crawls or scrolls that do not block any emergency information provided through other visual means (like other captions or crawls).
  • For stations that are permitted to use electronic newsroom technique (ENT) captions, where ENT does not provide captions for breaking news and emergency alerts, stations must make emergency information available through some other visual means. See our post here on this obligation.
  • The FCC suggests, but does not require, that stations make emergency information available through multiple means (maps, charts, and other visual information) and in plain language, so that all viewers can understand the nature of any emergency.

Continue Reading FCC Reminder to Video Programming Distributors – Including Broadcasters – on Accessibility Obligations

The FCC has issued a series of public notices to broadcasters and other FCC regulated entities in the path of Hurricane Irma. General guidance was issued by the FCC, here, discussing how stations can get special temporary authority to operate with facilities different than those specified in their licenses by email or even by…

Summer is coming to an end, but the legal obligations never take a vacation, and September brings another list of regulatory deadlines for broadcasters. While the month is one of those without the usual list of EEO Public File obligations or quarterly FCC filing obligations, there still are a number of other regulatory deadlines for which broadcasters need to be prepared.

For commercial broadcasters, the September date that should be on everyone’s mind is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees. As we wrote here, there is an FCC order circulating among the Commissioners that should be released any day, setting the amounts of the regulatory fees and the deadline for their payment. These fees will almost certainly be due in September, prior to the start of the government’s fiscal year on October 1. So stay alert for the announcement of the window for paying these “reg fees.”
Continue Reading September Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Including Reg Fees, Nationwide EAS Test, Must-Carry Letters, Lowest Unit Rate, Translator and Repack Deadlines and GMR License Extension

All EAS Participants – including all full-power broadcasters – must complete the 2017 ETRS Form One on or before August 28, 2017.  We wrote about this obligation here. The filing deadline was set for next week as the ETRS system is used so that stations can report on the results of nationwide EAS tests.…

It’s almost August, and despite it being vacation time for many, there are still regulatory dates that must be addressed by the broadcast industry. Routine filing dates this coming month include the need for EEO Public Inspection File Reports to be included in station’s public inspection files (either the online files for all TV stations and those radio stations that have already converted, or in the paper files for those radio groups that have not yet made the switch) for stations that are part of employment units with five or more full-time employees in California, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Links to these reports must also be included on the home page of any stations in such employment units, whether or not the station’s complete public file is available online. For more about station’s ongoing EEO obligations see our article here. EEO Mid-Term Reports are due to be file with the FCC on August 1 by Radio Station Employment Units with 11 or more full-time employees in California and Television Employment Units with five or more full-time employees in Illinois and Wisconsin. For more on these Mid-Term reports, see our article here.

August also brings the date for Reply Comments in the Modernization of Media Regulation proceeding (see our articles here and here). Reply comments in that proceeding looking to amend or repeal broadcast regulations that no longer make sense in the modern media environment are due by August 4. Many media companies are also watching the Restoring Internet Freedom proceeding, looking at what some people refer to as the Open Internet or Net Neutrality issues, where reply comments are due August 16.
Continue Reading August Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – EEO, Translators, Media Regulation Modernization, EAS, Incentive Auction and More

We wrote earlier this week about the upcoming EAS Nationwide Test and the need for broadcasters to make sure that their EAS equipment is operating in compliance with all FCC rules. The FCC itself has now released its own Public Notice detailing the many things that broadcasters need to check at their facilities before the…