The FCC today issued a Public Notice extending the deadline for the filing of the initial forms for broadcasters to participate in the incentive auction. We wrote about the form here, and the initial deadline here. The deadline is extended from December 18 to January 12. This also has the affect
Low Power Television/Class A TV
FCC Reminds TV Broadcasters that Reports on Ancillary and Supplementary Services (and Required Fees) Are Due By December 1
By David Oxenford on
The FCC today issued a Public Notice reminding TV broadcasters (full-power, LPTV, translator and Class A stations, both commercial and noncommercial, if they have digital operations) that they must, by December 1, file a report on the ancillary and supplementary services that they provide and pay a fee of 5% of gross…
The Incentive Auction Moves Forward – FCC Decisions Further Defining Channel Sharing, and Order Setting When Wireless Users “Commence Operations” Ending LPTV Operations
The FCC seems to almost daily be issuing orders in the incentive auction proceeding, looking to the filing of applications in December by TV stations ready to give up their spectrum to the FCC so that it can be repackaged and resold to wireless users. In the last two days, the Commission has issued orders further clarifying the channel sharing rules and defining when a wireless user of the newly repackaged spectrum “commences operations” requiring that LPTV stations and TV translators operating on frequencies that would cause interference to the wireless operators to cease operations.
On channel sharing, the FCC ruled on a few issues not addressed in earlier channel sharing orders, clarifying issues raised by these prior orders (see our articles on channel sharing agreements here and here) some of which will affect very few TV stations. For instance, it decided that TV stations which entered into channel sharing agreements in which both parties offer their spectrum for surrender can designate alternative channel sharing partners in the event that both stations to the initial sharing agreement are “frozen” in the incentive auction at the same time – meaning that both will be bought out by the FCC if the auction is a success in the round in which they are frozen. While it is commendable that the FCC is providing stations with this flexibility to designate a backup sharing partner in case their initial partner’s station is also bought out in the auction, it would seem that it is unlikely that many stations will put themselves in a position to take advantage of this provision, as most channel sharing agreements will require one station to retain a channel on which the partners in the agreement can operate post-auction. It would seem as if it will be the rare case where all parties to a channel sharing agreement will be subject to being bought out by the FCC at the same time. Probably much more important is the decision of the FCC to extend the dates by which stations that agree to channel sharing agreements must actually implement those agreements after the auction has concluded.
Continue Reading The Incentive Auction Moves Forward – FCC Decisions Further Defining Channel Sharing, and Order Setting When Wireless Users “Commence Operations” Ending LPTV Operations
New Accessibility Compliance Deadlines for TV Stations Coming Very Soon
TV stations have in the past few years been hit with many requirements for making their programming – especially emergency information – accessible to all people within their service areas. Two deadlines loom in the very short term that stations need to remember – the requirements for converting text based emergency information aired on their stations outside of news and EAS alerts (usually crawls dealing with issues such as severe weather alerts) into speech for airing on their SAP channels, and the requirement that any clips transmitted through IP technology (e.g. to computers or through apps) must contain captions if those clips were taken from programming that was broadcast with captions.
Some trade press reports have indicated that some TV stations are still having issues with the requirement that stations take emergency information broadcast outside of news programming and not in EAS alerts, and convert that information to speech to be broadcast on the station’s SAP channel (in some cases requiring that the station activate a SAP channel if they did not already have one). This rule is meant to cover information like weather alerts typically carried in crawls during entertainment programs. The rule was supposed to take effect in May, but was extended until November 30 when it appeared that most TV stations were not ready to meet the original deadline. We wrote about the requirements and the extension here and here. The extension also put on hold obligations to include school closing alerts on the SAP channel when it became clear that the time necessary to broadcast those alert on the SAP channel (and to do it twice, as required by the rules for the audio alerts on the SAP channels) would likely overwhelm the ability to carry any other information. The extension order also extended until November 2016 the obligation to aurally describe on the SAP channel any non-textual, graphical information conveyed by the station outside of news programs (e.g. weather radar images). But the general obligation to convert text to speech still goes into effect at the end of next month – so stations need to be ready.
Continue Reading New Accessibility Compliance Deadlines for TV Stations Coming Very Soon
October Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Many Routine Filings for All Broadcasters, Incentive Auction Actions, and More
By David Oxenford on
Posted in AM Radio, Cable Carriage, Children's Programming and Advertising, Digital Television, EEO Compliance/Diversity, FM Radio, FM Translators and LPFM, General FCC, Incentive Auctions/Broadband Report, License Renewal, Low Power Television/Class A TV, Noncommercial Broadcasting, Programming Regulations, Public Interest Obligations/Localism, Television
October is one of those months where the regulatory stars align, when not only do broadcasters in many states have EEO Public File report obligations, but also Quarterly Issues Programs Lists need to be placed in the public files of all commercial and noncommercial stations, and Quarterly Children’s Television Reports need to be filed at the FCC and placed in the public files of television stations. On top of these routine obligations, there are a number of actions likely to be taken by the FCC that may affect many segments of the broadcast industry. So let’s look at some of the specifics.
First, by October 1, EEO public file reports should be placed in the public file of stations with 5 or more full-time employees, if those stations are located in the following states and territories: Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, American Samoa, Guam, the Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands. In addition to those obligations, radio stations that are part of employment units with 11 or more full-time employees and are located in the states of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands must prepare and file with the FCC EEO Mid-Term Reports on FCC Form 397, submitting specifics of their employment practices in the last two years (through the submission of their Public File reports) as well as some additional information. The Mid-Term report for those stations are due by October 1. More information about these EEO obligations can be found in our article here.
Continue Reading October Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Many Routine Filings for All Broadcasters, Incentive Auction Actions, and More
FCC Regulatory Fees Due September 24 – Plus FCC Proposes Changes in Future Broadcaster Fee Computations
The FCC announced yesterday 2015 regulatory fees are due by 11:59 pm (Eastern Daylight Time) on September 24, 2015. The FCC also announced that the FCC’s automated filing and payment system (Fee Filer) for FY 2015 regulatory fees was open yesterday and will reopen on Tuesday, September 8 (it is closed today through the holiday weekend as the entire FCC electronic filing system is being shut down for maintenance). All commercial radio and television stations (and those who hold construction permits for unbuilt commercial stations) must pay these fees. The fees for radio are the same as were proposed in our article on the FCC’s proposal for the fees, here. The fees for TV changed slightly from those proposed in May, and are set out at the bottom of this article. The FCC also issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, asking a number of questions about potential changes in the computation of broadcast fees in the future.
The FCC reminded all parties who pay fees that checks will not be accepted for regulatory fees. Instead, all fees must be paid electronically by online “ACH” payment (an electronic payment system that many use for transferring money from one party’s accounts to another’s account), by credit card (though credit card payments will only be accepted when a company’s total fees due are less than $25,000), or wire transfer, all with an accompanying FCC 159-E form which must first be electronically filed through the FCC’s Fee Filer system.
Continue Reading FCC Regulatory Fees Due September 24 – Plus FCC Proposes Changes in Future Broadcaster Fee Computations
FCC Sets December 2 Deadline for Filing 2015 Biennial Ownership Reports for Commercial Broadcast Stations
The FCC today released an Order setting December 2 as the date for the filing of FCC Form 323 Ownership Reports by commercial broadcast stations. All commercial broadcasters must submit this report. While the report is technically supposed to be filed by November 1 every other year, that date has routinely been extended as the FCC form is far more complicated to complete for many licensees than are the normal ownership reports that are filed after station purchases and sales (see for instance, this article two years ago).
These reports require information as to each owner of a broadcast company as of October 1, 2015. A unique identifier for each individual named in a report is also required as the FCC is looking to make all ownership information searchable by individual, so that interested persons can determine the interlocking broadcast interests of owners of broadcast stations. As we wrote here, the FCC has recently proposed a way to identify individuals who don’t want their social security numbers to be used to obtain the necessary FCC identification number – though that procedure has not yet been adopted but could quite well be acted on before the filing date. In addition, the form requires that the race, ethnicity and gender of individual owners be reported, so that minority ownership can be assessed and tracked by the FCC. To make all individuals and their interests searchable, the forms require separate fields for different blocks of information including other broadcasts interests of individual owners – making the form complex to complete for companies with multiple owners who have multiple broadcast interests. These reports need to be filed electronically, and can take time to complete, so don’t wait to start work on the biennial report.
Continue Reading FCC Sets December 2 Deadline for Filing 2015 Biennial Ownership Reports for Commercial Broadcast Stations
$90,000 Payment to FCC by TV Owner for Claiming Reruns of One-Time Programs as Meeting “CORE” Children’s Educational and Informational Programming Requirement
On Friday, the FCC announced a consent decree for violations of the requirements that TV stations provide at least three weekly hours of CORE programming addressing the educational and informational needs of children. The operator of eight TV and Class A TV stations in the southeast US agreed to make a $90,000 “voluntary contribution” to the Federal government and to adopt new practices to insure future compliance with the CORE programming requirements. The FCC had held up the license renewals of many of its stations as the licensee had claimed reruns of one-time programs as fulfilling the CORE requirements. As explained in the FCC’s Order, the FCC does not consider such programming to meet the requirements of the children’s television rules.
Under the rules, the FCC has the following requirements for CORE programming meeting the educational and informational (“E/I” in the language used by the FCC) needs of children:
(1) serving the E/I needs of children ages 16 and under is a significant purpose of the programming;
(2) the program is to be aired between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.;
(3) the program is a regularly-scheduled weekly program;
(4) the program must be at least 30 minutes in length;
(5) the program is identified as being specifically designed to educate and inform children through the on-screen display of the E/I symbol throughout the program;
(6) the educational objective and the target child audience are specified in writing in the licensee’s Children’s Television Programming Report; and
(7) the licensee must provide instructions for listing the program as E/I, including an indication of the age group for which the program is intended, to publishers of TV program guides.
In this case, the licensee was deemed to have violated criteria number 3 above – as its programming was not “regularly scheduled.”
Continue Reading $90,000 Payment to FCC by TV Owner for Claiming Reruns of One-Time Programs as Meeting “CORE” Children’s Educational and Informational Programming Requirement
Our Quarterly Review of the Legal and Regulatory Issues Facing TV Broadcasters
Each quarter, my partner David O’Connor and I update a list of the legal and regulatory issues facing TV broadcasters. That list of issues is published by TVNewsCheck and is available on their website, here. Our latest update was published today, and provides a summary of the status of legal and regulatory issues…
TV Incentive Auction Moves Forward – The FCC Denies Reconsideration of Auction Framework, Asks for Comments on TVStudy Predictions of Station Coverage to be used in Determining Station Values
Earlier this week, we wrote about the Court of Appeals decision denying appeals of the FCC’s 2014 order setting the framework for the incentive auction to reclaim spectrum used by TV stations and repurpose it for use by wireless companies to provide more high-speed wireless broadband opportunities. But, in addition to the appeals, there were also a number of petitions for reconsideration of the 2014 order. Those were also resolved in an FCC order released last month. Many of the issues considered concerned technical matters as to how the new wireless spectrum would be allocated and sold after it is acquired from the broadcasters. But the order also resolved a number of issues of specific importance to broadcasters, some of which could potentially result in another appeal of the 2014 order to the Court of Appeals.
Initially, in its reconsideration order, the FCC refused to reconsider the modifications to the OET-69 standard for determining interference between television stations as that issue was before the Court of Appeals in the appeal filed by Sinclair and the NAB – the appeal that was denied by the FCC the week before this order was released. The use of the TVStudy updates to the inputs to the OET-69 have again been in the news this week, as the FCC released new population counts for each auction-eligible station as computed by using this information, and asked for comment on this information by July 30. The population served by a TV station is a very important input into how much a station would receive to surrender its spectrum in the incentive auction (just how important that input will be is an issue to be addressed at the FCC meeting next week). The FCC request for comments is here, and the table showing the FCC’s prediction of the population served by each auction-eligible TV station is here. This updated information has already proved to be controversial, with one association representing probable auction participants suggesting that the recomputation of a NY TV station that will set the highest opening offer to buy out the spectrum of any TV station, and from which the offers to other lesser valued stations will be derived, could have the impact of lessening initial buyout offers to other broadcasters (see the blog post here).
Continue Reading TV Incentive Auction Moves Forward – The FCC Denies Reconsideration of Auction Framework, Asks for Comments on TVStudy Predictions of Station Coverage to be used in Determining Station Values