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Just about a year ago, the FCC issued an Order which, as we wrote here, contained some good news and some bad news for broadcasters.  The good news was that the FCC came up with a relatively short form (far shorter than the multi-page form originally proposed) that broadcasters could use to assess whether a buyer of program time on the station was a foreign government or an agent a foreign government.  This assessment of buyers of program time was required by FCC rules that became effective in 2022.  In 2022, no form was provided, so broadcasters had to come up with their own certifications to get assurances that program time buyers were not foreign governments or their agents (and if they were, public file and other enhanced on-air disclosures were required).  Last week, the FCC announced the effective date of a new form which, if signed by the broadcaster and the ad buyer, provides broadcasters with a safe harbor for assurances that the buyer is not a foreign agent (the forms are at Appendix C and D on pages 47 and 48 of the 2024 FCC Order).[1] 

The bad news in the order from last year was that the FCC extended the requirement that this assessment be made from buyers of program time, to also include buyers of paid PSAs and other spots that are not for a commercial product or service (including political issue ads – but excepting candidate ads on the theory that those ads had already been vetted for foreign influence by the qualification of the candidate to run for office).  While these rules were adopted a year ago, they have been on hold, until now, while a standard Paperwork Reduction Act review was completed (as required for all rules imposing new paperwork obligations on those subject to the rules). Continue Reading FCC Announces Effective Date of Modifications to Rules Governing the Purchase of Broadcast Airtime By Agents of Foreign Governments

  • The FCC’s Media Bureau announced that June 10 is the effective date for the FCC’s modified broadcast foreign sponsorship identification
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Though school may be letting out for many, the FCC does not take a summer recess.  Instead, regulation continues.  Perhaps most importantly, Chairman Carr will have a Republican majority on the FCC for the first time since the change in administration, as Democratic Commissioner Starks has said that he is leaving the Commission before its June meeting.  See our article from earlier in the week for our views on some of the issues that may be prioritized once the Chairman’s majority is in place.  In addition, there are some routine deadlines – including EEO filing deadlines for broadcasters in several states across the country and deadlines for comments or reply comments in a number of rulemaking proceedings.  And there are political windows that open in June, principally for elections that will occur in August.

June 2 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.  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 can lead to FCC fines (see our article here about a recent $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).Continue Reading June 2025 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Annual EEO Public File Reports, Comment Deadlines, and More

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 Media Bureau extended the deadline for TV broadcasters to comply with the audible crawl rule’s until the earlier
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  • President Trump signed an Executive Order purporting to end federal subsidies for NPR and PBS provided through the Corporation for
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  • 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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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?