Low Power Television/Class A TV

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  • The FCC announced that September 24 is the deadline for paying the 2026 annual regulatory fees which were set by
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It is time for all commercial operators to pay your annual regulatory fees.  Each year, broadcasters (and other entities regulated by the FCC) are required to pay fees that are used to fund the FCC.  These fees are due each year before the October 1 start of the new federal government fiscal year.  This week, the FCC announced that 2026 Regulatory Fees must be received by the FCC no later than 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time on September 24, 2026. All regulatory fees must be paid using the CORES platform. That platform is now open for the payment of these fees.  Be sure to pay on time, as if you pay late, you will be assessed a 25% penalty, interest may accrue on the balance after the due dates, and the FCC can withhold action on and even dismiss applications filed by a licensee that did not timey pay their fees.  

The Media Bureau’s Fact Sheet provides a detailed reference for the calculation of fees for different broadcast services (including the fees for construction permits) and the process by which payments can be made.  Licensees may find that some station fees have been preloaded into CORES, but radio licensees can always check the FCC’s regulatory fee look-up website, http://fccfees.com/, before paying to confirm the amount due for each station. This site will also inform the payee of the relevant codes needed to input into CORES for any station fees that are manually uploaded. Full-power television stations will find their fees in the chart found in Appendix F of the Report & Order. As in prior years, the FCC has set a de minimis threshold of $1,000. If the total amount owed by a licensee is $1,000 or less, that licensee does not owe any regulatory fees.  Broadcasters who are also the licensees of earth stations should review the Fact Sheet from the Space Bureau about those fees.  Broadcasters who have other nonbroadcast private radio licenses should review the Fact Sheet from the Wireless Bureau.

Continue Reading Annual Regulatory Fees Due September 24 – FCC Releases Detailed Instructions for Payments

It is time for our look at September’s regulatory dates and deadlines to which broadcasters should be paying attention, and the deadline that probably is most important to all commercial broadcasters is not yet known.  That, of course, is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees, which must be made before the federal government’s October 1 start of the new fiscal year.  The FCC on Friday announced the amount of those fees, and we expect that this coming week, the payment window will be set, and the FCC will issue fee filing guides for all the industries regulated by the FCC – including a Media Bureau filing guide for broadcasters.  Stay alert for those announcements. 

Later in the month is the filing window for broadcasters to submit their Auction 114 “short-form” construction permit applications necessary to participate in the action of 132 construction permits for new FM stations, (see the list of available channels here).  The filing window opens at 12:00 p.m. ET on September 14 and closes at 6:00 p.m. ET on September 30.  Bidding is scheduled to begin on February 2, 2027.  These “short-form” applications on FCC Form 175 are necessary to participate in the auction.  Among the information required from an applicant in the Form 175 is the identification of which of the 132 vacant allotments they intend to bid on, any bidding credits for which they may be eligible, and certain ownership information.  Applicants may also specify specific coordinates for tower sites that an applicant plans to use for any channel to protect that site from being precluded by subsequent applications by other FM stations.  For more on the process, see our article here and the FCC’s instructions for auction participation here.  In addition, the FCC just released a Small Entity Compliance Guide summarizing the requirements and procedures for the upcoming Auction.

Continue Reading September 2026 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – FCC Regulatory Fees, Auction 114 Short-Form Applications and Filing Freeze, Deadline for Implementation of EAS Security Practices, LUC Window for the November Election and More
  • The FCC’s Order adopted in June that requires broadcasters to quickly adopt new security practices to protect their EAS systems
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In early July, we wrote about the FCC’s decision to require that all broadcasters take measures to secure their EAS operations – and in the process secure their entire program chain – to make sure that malicious actors can’t hack into their systems and send false alerts.  The FCC today published in the Federal Register the order making those changes, which will require broadcasters to meet these security requirements in 60 days – by September 29.

By that date, the FCC requires that broadcasters have strong passwords for any part of their program chain that is connected to the internet, that they have the latest security updates installed in all hardware and software, and that they put all access to their program chain behind a firewall.  We wrote about the FCC’s decision and what is required back in early July and, now that the deadline for compliance is set, we reprint below much of that article to remind broadcasters of the details of what they need to do by the September 29 deadline:

At its regular monthly open meeting [in June], the FCC adopted an Order meant to enhance the security of the Emergency Alerting System.  Citing past hacks of the system that have resulted in false EAS alerts being transmitted to the public by broadcast stations, the FCC proposed in 2022 that broadcasters adopt a comprehensive cybersecurity plan with an annual filing requirement detailing how risks were managed and controlled (see our article here).  The Order adopted this week did not go that far, but it did adopt a mandatory three-point plan to secure not only EAS equipment at a station, but also to secure the entire program chain to ensure that bad actors can’t access station programming to insert false emergency information or other malicious content. 

While the first two requirements of the mandated plan should be relatively simple for broadcasters to quickly implement, the third may require some outside help – and the FCC has given broadcasters only a short time to implement this requirement.  The Order requires implementation within 60 days of the date that the Order is published in the Federal Register (see the just-released FCC Erratum correcting the Order to reiterate that the effective date will be 60 days after Federal Register publication).  As Federal Register publication should come soon, the Order requires quick action by broadcasters.  Let’s look at the new obligations.

Continue Reading New Security Obligations for Broadcasters Required by September 29 – Strong Passwords, Updated Software and Hardware, and Firewalls to Protect All Parts of the Program Chain
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau announced that the upcoming new noncommercial educational FM translator reserved band (88.1-91.9 MHz) filing window has
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This week, the FCC’s Media Bureau released a Public Notice to remind broadcasters that new foreign sponsorship identification requirements go into effect June 7, 2026.  These rules clarify the existing obligations of broadcasters to determine whether buyers of program time on a station are foreign governments or their representatives.  The obligation to get certifications from buyers of program time  as to whether they are foreign governments or their agents has actually have been in effect since 2022 (see our article here).  The June 7 effective date applies to a new method of compliance with the verification obligation, adopted by a Commission Order in 2024.  The 2024 Order also extended this certification obligation beyond leased program time, to cover commercial advertising on a station except for ads for commercial products or services and ads for political candidates (see our article here).  In other words, ads for Tide or Coca-Cola or by the John Smith for Congress official campaign committee are not subject to the rule, but ads that are not for commercial products and services or by political candidates are subject to the rule – including political issue ads and paid PSAs.  However, this week’s Public Notice put on hold the extension of the certification obligation to spot time while the Commission reassesses the costs and benefits of that requirement, except where the station has “actual knowledge” that the spots were provided by a foreign governmental entity.

This is a convoluted set of requirements, so let’s break it down.

As background, in 2021, the FCC adopted rules requiring broadcasters to determine whether any party “leasing” programming is a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government (a “foreign government entity”).  Broadcasters must also assure themselves that these foreign government entities have not paid for the furnishing of that time anywhere in the program’s production chain.  These rules became effective in March 2022.  Since then, broadcasters have been obligated to determine if buyers of program time are foreign government entities.  The FCC required that broadcasters obtain written certifications from program buyers as to whether or not they were representatives of foreign governments, but it did not specify the form of those certifications. 

Continue Reading FCC Announces Effective Date of New Certifications from Buyers of Program Time to Identify Foreign Government Sponsored Programming, But Puts Other Obligations on Hold

Though school may be letting out for many, the FCC does not take a summer recess.  Instead, regulation continues with the filing of Annual EEO Public File Reports due for some broadcasters on June 1.  There are also several other regulatory and comment deadlines coming up this June, including the deadline for all commercial full power TV, Class A TV, and AM and FM radio stations to begin complying with the FCC’s new foreign sponsorship identification requirements (with some exceptions), and comment deadlines in the FCC’s proceedings concerning its fiscal year 2026 regulatory fees, next year’s auction of vacant FM allotments, and the TV Parental Guidelines ratings system.  And there are political windows that open in June for elections that will occur in July and August. 

June 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming with five or more full-time employees to upload their Annual EEO Public File Report to their stations’ Online Public Inspection Files (OPIFs).  A station employment unit is a station or cluster of commonly controlled stations serving the same general geographic area with 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 $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).  Note that, for radio stations in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, this EEO Report will be one of the two assessed by the FCC in its review of their license renewal applications that will be due by June 1, 2027 – the start of a new license renewal cycle for radio and, a year later, for TV. 

The filing of the Annual EEO Public File Reports by TV station employment units with five or more employees triggers a Mid-Term EEO Review that analyzes the last two Annual Reports for compliance with the FCC’s EEO requirements.  The Mid-Term EEO Review begins June 1 for these larger TV station employment units in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming subject to this review.  See our articles here and here on broadcasters’ Mid-Term EEO Review reporting requirements.

Continue Reading June 2026 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Foreign Sponsorship Identification Requirements Compliance Deadline, Annual EEO Public File Reports, Comment Deadlines, Political Windows, and more
  • The language of the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, which would mandate the inclusion of AM radios in all
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  • The FCC announced that it will hold Auction 114, beginning on February 2, 2027, making available 132 channels on which
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