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At Thursday’s FCC monthly open meeting, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks announced that it would be his last meeting.  In March, he said that he would be departing soon, so the announcement that he would be gone before the FCC’s next scheduled open meeting on June 26 was not a surprise.  But as one of two remaining Democratic FCC Commissioners, even though the nomination of Olivia Trusty as the third Republican Commissioner has not yet been approved by the Senate, this announcement guarantees that Chairman Carr will have a Republican majority in time for next month’s open meeting.  With that majority, what issues affecting broadcasters might be affected?

Probably highest on the list is the broadcast ownership rules.  We noted in our recent article on the ownership rules that the FCC had not yet released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking teeing up the issues that it expected to address in its 2022 Quadrennial Review – even though that review needs to be completed this year so that the 2026 review can begin on time.  As both Chairman Carr and Republican Commissioner Simington have recently been quoted as acknowledging that the current ownership rules are antiquated and in need of change to allow local broadcasters to compete with the plethora of new digital competition, a Republican majority may well make it possible for a proposal for aggressive relaxation of the rules to be advanced soon – something that might not have been possible had the Commission been locked in its partisan deadlock.Continue Reading A Republican FCC Majority Coming Soon as Commissioner Starks Announces Imminent Departure – What Broadcast Issues May be Affected? 

The FCC’s 2024 decision to reinstate Form 395-B, after its use had been paused for over 20 years, was invalidated this week by a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  In yet another instance of courts limiting the authority of administrative agencies, the Fifth Circuit judges found that the FCC has no statutory authority to require the filing and public posting of the form requiring broadcasters to report on the race and gender of all of their employees.  In reaching this decision, the Court made clear that the FCC’s authority to regulate “in the public interest” is not an authority that is unlimited, but instead is one that must be grounded in specific duties that the FCC has been given by Congress in the Communications Act.  The Commission cannot impose obligations on broadcasters under the public interest standard simply because a majority of the Commissioners believe that new rules would somehow make broadcast service better – they can only act in areas that Congress specifically said that they can act.  That aspect of the Court’s decision may have a significant impact in assessing the validity of current and future obligations imposed by the FCC on broadcasters.

The FCC’s decision to reinstate the Form 395-B was very controversial.  In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the FCC’s EEO policies were twice struck down by the courts as unconstitutional as they forced hiring based on racial or gender.  The Form 395-B provided the information used by the FCC to make the decisions that the courts found to be discriminatory.  Given the form’s direct relationship with the FCC actions that had been found unconstitutional, after these court decisions, the FCC suspended the use of the form. Continue Reading Court Finds FCC Has No Authority to Require EEO Form 395-B – And Narrows Scope of the Public Interest Standard

  • President Trump signed an Executive Order purporting to end federal subsidies for NPR and PBS provided through the Corporation for
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In many of the comments filed by broadcasters and their representatives in the FCC’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” docket, high on the list of rules suggested for deletion were the local broadcast ownership restrictions.  Changes in these rules were also a subject high on the discussion list in Las Vegas at the recent NAB Convention.  With all of the interest in changes to these rules, we thought that we should spend a little time looking at the possible routes by which FCC action on changes to the ownership rules could occur.

First, it should be noted that the local ownership rules are different from the national cap on television ownership which, as we recently wrote, the NAB has asked the FCC to abolish.  A review of the 39% national audience cap was started in the Pai administration at the FCC (see our article here), and the NAB is seeking to revive and resolve that proceeding, arguing that national caps are no longer necessary given the competition from so many other national video services that are unrestrained by any ownership limitations.Continue Reading Local Broadcast Ownership Rules – How Could Ownership Deregulation Play Out? 

  • The FCC announced that May 23 is the effective date of its January Order increasing its application fees, including those
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  • The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a decision that raises significant questions about the FCC’s ability
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  • The NAB and SoundExchange filed with the Copyright Royalty Board a proposed settlement of the pending litigation over the 2026-2030
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A few weeks ago, FCC Chairman Carr announced the beginning of the “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding at the FCC – looking at “alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens” on the companies that it regulates, across all industries, to unleash companies to innovate, invest, and expand.  Comments are due April 11 and replies April 28.  With less than a week to go before comments are filed in this latest attempt to lessen the regulatory burden on broadcasters, we thought that we would look at some of the issues that may come up in this proceeding, and some of the policies that stubbornly remain on the books but should be addressed.

Broadcasters are expected to advance many ideas.  But, before considering some of the issues likely to be addressed, it is important to put this proceeding in context.  This is not the first time broadcasters have been asked to engage in this kind of exercise.  In the 1980s, the FCC conducted multiple proceedings to address the “regulatory underbrush,” eliminating, among other things, rules that had required specific amounts of news and public affairs programming on every station, rules mandating a specific number of PSAs, rules requiring specific program and engineering logs as official records for every station, and policies restricting advertising for certain perceived vices like parimutuel betting and fortune tellers.  In the 1990s, as a result of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, other obligations were changed (including the adoption of the current local radio ownership rules, the abolition of the ability of any party to file a competing application contending that it should get the right to operate a broadcast station every time a license renewal was filed, and extending the license renewal term from three to eight years (see our article on some of those changes, here).  Just eight years ago, FCC Chairman Pai initiated the Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative (see our article here).  That proceeding resulted in the abolition or streamlining of many FCC rules, such as the main studio rule (see our articles  here and here), some children’s television rules (see our posts here and here), and rules prohibiting same-service radio program duplication by commonly owned stations, although the prohibition on FM/FM duplication by commonly owned stations serving the same area was reinstated by the last administration, though that action remains subject to a reconsideration petition (see our articles here, here, here, and here on some of the other changes brought about by Chairman Pai’s initiative).  However, there were many other obligations left unaddressed.  There are so many rules applicable to broadcasters, and so many competitive changes in the market have  impacted the relevance of many of those rules, that no proceeding ever seems to address every issue it should.  But we expect that many rules will be addressed in this “Delete” proceeding. Continue Reading Less Than a Week to Go Before “Delete, Delete, Delete” Proposals on Eliminating Unnecessary FCC Regulations Are Due – What Should Be Included?