Discussion of FCC, copyright, advertising and other legal issues of importance to radio and television broadcasters and other media companies
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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As we enter the last quarter of the year, the broadcasters’ October calendar is full of important regulatory dates and deadlines. We share some of those dates below and urge you to stay in close touch with your lawyers, engineers, and consultants for the dates and deadlines applicable to your station’s operations.
On or before October 1, radio stations in Alaska, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, Marianas Islands, Oregon, and Washington and TV stations in Iowa and Missouri must submit their license renewal applications. Pay close attention to the contents of your online public file and be sure that all required documents are complete and were uploaded on time. Stations filing their renewals (other than LPFMs) are also required to file a Broadcast EEO Program Report (FCC Form 2100, Schedule 396), submitting two years of EEO Public File reports for FCC review unless your employment unit employs fewer than 5 full-time employees. As you are putting the final touches on your applications, be sure to read the instructions for the license renewal application (radio, TV) and consult with counsel if you have questions.…
Continue Reading October Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: License Renewals, Broadcast Ownership Filings, Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, Rulemaking Comment Dates and More
Here are some of the regulatory developments from the last week of significance to broadcasters , with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Comments are due on September 30 on the FCC’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking looking to bring back some form of the old FCC Form 395B, the Annual Employment Report. That form required broadcasters to report on the racial and gender make-up of their workforce in various employment categories. The use of the form has been on hold for almost two decades after two rulings from the US Court of Appeals that found it was unconstitutional for the FCC to use the information collected from the Form 395B to determine if a broadcaster’s license renewal application deserved extra scrutiny. In effect, the court found using the reports in this way compelled broadcasters to make hiring decisions based on the race and gender of employment candidates, which was discriminatory and thus could not be compelled by the FCC.
This created a tension between a law requiring that the FCC gather information on the racial and gender make-up of the broadcast workforce to determine if affirmative action efforts should be made on an industry-wide basis, versus the prohibition on gathering this information on a station-specific basis where the temptation would always be to look at a specific station’s data and make assumptions about whether it had been in making employment decisions in color blind manner. While the FCC has over the last two decades repeatedly considered bringing back the form to collect information on an industry-wide basis, questions have always arisen as to how the accuracy and completeness of that information could be assured if the information gathered did not identify the station providing it. And, once that information was in hand, would it be subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) obligations that could force its disclosure which could lead to it potentially being used in an enforcement context?…
Continue Reading The Return of FCC Form 395B? – The FCC Looks at Reviving Reports on the Race and Gender of Broadcast Employees
In recent weeks, decisions of a US District Court judge in the Southern District of New York led to the suspension of service by the Internet streaming company Locast, which built its business on streaming local television stations generally without obtaining the consent of TV stations or the copyright holders in the programs they broadcast. Facially, the service looked much like that offered by Aereo, which the Supreme Court determined seven years ago violated federal copyright law by retransmitting TV stations without first obtaining the consent of the copyright holders (see our article here on the Aereo Supreme Court decision). Locast offered a novel defense to the claims that it was nothing but an Aereo imitator, contending that the Copyright Act permitts nonprofit entities to retransmit copyrighted materials without the consent of copyright owners. The federal judge in the Southern District rejected that argument in his opinion on a motion for summary judgement, and then issued an injunction ordering the service to cease operating (though Locast had already suspended those operations after the initial decision on the motion for summary judgement). What did the judge find?
Locast had argued that Section 111(a)(5) of the Copyright Act permits “secondary transmissions” of a “primary transmission” (i.e., an internet transmission of an over-the-air television signal) without permission of copyright holders if the retransmissions are made by a government body or nonprofit organization “without charge to the recipients of the secondary transmission other than assessments necessary to defray the actual and reasonable costs of maintaining and operating the secondary transmission service.” This provision of the rules was intended to allow governments and local nonprofit associations in rural communities to provide TV translators or community antenna systems to bring television service to their communities. Locast argued that the provision should also be interpreted to authorize its service, which interrupted service every 15 minutes to ask for donations unless a user paid a $5 monthly “contribution” to the service. The judge determined that the payment of this $5 monthly fee took Locast outside the narrow “nonprofit organization” exception provided by the law.…
Continue Reading Looking at the Court Decision Which Led to the Shuttering of Locast’s Retransmission of Local TV on the Internet
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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With a week to go before the deadline for submission of annual regulatory fees, we urge broadcasters to get into the FCC’s fee filing system now and pay their fees. We have been told that there are sometimes glitches in the electronic payment system that can take time to resolve. With a 25% penalty on payments received after the September 24 deadline, broadcasters should not wait until the last minute to submit these fees and risk having to pay the steep penalty for a late payment should a glitch arise.
The FCC has issued numerous public notices about the payment of these annual regulatory fees that anyone paying fees should review to make sure that they know all that they need to know to make a complete and timely payment. The FCC initially issued a Public Notice announcing that the payment window is open and will be open for timely payments through 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time on September 24, 2021. The Media Bureau subsequently released a Media Bureau Fee Filing Guide setting out payment specifics for computing the fees due from broadcast stations. The Bureau’s online fee lookup portal for the fees that the FCC believes are due from any specific station was activated early this week (see the FCC Public Notice here). Remember, fees are based on a station’s status as of October 1, 2020, so stations that have since changed facilities pay on the facilities as they were last year – and that is what should be reflected in the FCC’s database. This week, the FCC also issued a Fact Sheet explaining who does not owe fees – including noncommercial stations and companies whose total obligations are $1000 or less.…
Continue Reading 2021 Regulatory Fee Deadline of September 24 – Don’t Delay!
Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
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