The lazy days of summer provide little respite from the regulatory actions of importance to broadcasters. July brings quarterly requirements, including most importantly, the obligation to upload Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists to a station’s online public file. There are comment deadlines in July in three FCC proceedings: on regulatory fees, on a proposal for LPTV stations
FCC Fees
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: June 9, 2025 to June 13, 2025
- The FCC’s Media Bureau announced that June 10 is the effective date for the FCC’s modified broadcast foreign sponsorship identification
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: June 3, 2025 to June 6, 2025
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: May 27, 2025 to May 29, 2025
- The FCC sent to Congress its Budget Estimates request for Fiscal Year 2026. The budget request contains a few specific
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: May 19, 2025 to May 23, 2025
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: April 21, 2025 to April 25, 2025
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: March 24, 2025 to March 28, 2025
- FCC Chairman Carr stated on X that the FCC is prepared to block transactions among FCC-regulated companies, including broadcasters, where
April 2025 Regulatory Updates for Broadcasters – Annual EEO Public File Reports, Comment Deadlines, Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, Political Windows, and more
April brings a number of routine regulatory dates for broadcasters across the country, including the requirement for posting Quarterly Issues Programs Lists to full-power station’s online public inspection files. April also brings comment deadlines in several rulemaking proceedings including one in which many broadcasters are interested – the FCC’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding looking to eliminate unnecessary broadcast regulations. Finally, we note lowest unit rate windows that open this month, including one for primaries in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, one of the more significant “off-year” elections in 2025. We look in more detail at some of the most significant deadlines below.
April 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas 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 has in the past led to FCC fines (see our article here about a recent $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).Continue Reading April 2025 Regulatory Updates for Broadcasters – Annual EEO Public File Reports, Comment Deadlines, Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, Political Windows, and more
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: February 24, 2025 to February 28, 2025
- The National Association of Broadcasters filed a Petition for Rulemaking asking the FCC to require that full-power television stations complete
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: February 3, 2025 to February 7, 2025
- Payola on broadcast stations suddenly was in the news this past week. Early in the week, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)