Tower Issues

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Last week, the FCC announced a Consent Decree with a Florida broadcaster, with the broadcaster admitting violations of several FCC rules and agreeing to pay a $125,000 fine and enter into a consent decree to ensure future compliance.  The violations addressed in the decree include (i) the failure to monitor tower lights and report that they had been out for significant periods of time, (ii) the failure to update the Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) of the tower to reflect that the broadcaster was the owner, (iii) not following the announced rules in conducting certain contests, and (iv) broadcasting seemingly live content that was in fact prerecorded, without labeling the programming as having been prerecorded.  While the details of the violations are provided in only summary fashion, these violations all serve as a reminder to broadcasters to watch their compliance – and also highlight the apparent interest of the FCC in enforcing the rule on seemingly live but prerecorded content, a rule rarely if ever enforced until this year.

Looking at the contest violations first, the Consent Decree gives a general description of the contests in question in a footnote.  One contest was apparently a scavenger hunt.  The station had intended for the contest to run for an extended period, but a listener found the prize soon after the on-air promotion began.  To prolong the on-air suspense, the station agreed with that listener to not reveal that she had won.  The station continued to promote and seemingly conduct the contest on the air for some time, until finally awarding the prize to the original winner.  In another contest, the station gave prizes to people who called in at designated times during the day.  According to the allegations in the Consent Decree, fake call-ins were recorded by the station to be broadcast during times when there were no live DJs.  As we have written before (see our articles here and here), the FCC requires that stations conduct on-air contests substantially in the manner set out in the announced rules for that contest – and the broadcasts about the contest cannot be materially misleading.  The FCC concluded that these contests did not meet that standard, and also found another problem with those prerecorded call-ins to the station.…
Continue Reading $125,000 FCC Penalty to Broadcaster for Tower Structure and Contest Rule Violations – Including Violation of Rule Against Broadcasting Seemingly Live Recorded Programming Without Informing Listeners

Here are some of the regulatory developments of 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.  Also, we include a look at actions to watch in the week ahead.

  • FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced his intention

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Here are some of the regulatory developments of 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.

  • The FCC’s International Bureau released a Public Notice on its review of the requests for “lump sum reimbursement requests” for

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Here are some of the regulatory and legal developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how they may affect your operations.

  • The FCC this week released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing changes to the fees it charges broadcasters for

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As broadcasters continue to respond to the coronavirus while sometimes juggling work duties with family responsibilities like at-home virtual schooling, it would be easy to overlook regulatory dates and responsibilities.  This post should help alert you to some important dates in September that all stations should keep in mind – and we will also provide a reminder of some of the dates to remember in early October.  As in any year, as summer ends, regulatory activity picks up – and this year appears to be no different.

Each year, in September, regulatory fees are due, as the FCC is required to collect them before the October 1 start of the new fiscal year.  We expect that the final amount of those fees, and the deadlines and procedures for payment, should be announced any day.  For broadcasters, one of the big issues is whether those fees will be adjusted downward from what was initially proposed by the FCC in their Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this proceeding.  The National Association of Broadcasters has been leading an effort (we wrote about this here and NAB detailed recent meetings between CEO Gordon Smith and members of its legal department with FCC staff here and here) urging the FCC to reduce the amount of fees owed by broadcasters, in part because of the financial toll the pandemic has taken on the industry and in part because the proposed fee structure, which is determined by estimates as to how many FCC staffers are detailed to regulating an industry and the related benefit that industry receives, inaccurately reflects the number of FCC employees who work on radio issues.  Look for that decision very soon.…
Continue Reading September Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: Annual Regulatory Fees, Lowest Unit Rate Window Opening, C-Band Reimbursement, Rulemaking Comments and More

Many broadcasters who receive satellite-delivered programming do so through satellite dishes picking up transmissions from spectrum referred to as the C-band.  Part of that spectrum is to be auctioned to wireless users for 5G service starting in December.  Because of that auction, those using the band to receive satellite-delivered programs will be compressed into a…

Here are some of the regulatory and legal actions and developments of 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.

  • The FCC acted this week on two media modernization items that had been teed up for

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The FCC yesterday acted to resolve the proceeding begun a year ago (see our article here) to eliminate the rule that prevented an FM or TV broadcaster from denying space to a competing broadcaster on a broadcast tower that it controls.  As expected, that rule was eliminated by an order to become effective when it is published in the Federal Register (as it adopts no new paperwork requirements, review under the Paperwork Reduction Act which so often delays the effective date of FCC actions is not required).  This rule was initially adopted 75 years ago and, in the past, it had been seen as a way to ensure that a broadcaster could not, by withholding access to a unique tower site that the existing broadcaster controlled, foreclose a new competing station from coming on the air.

The FCC justified its abolition of the rule by finding that there are many more towers now available to broadcasters than were available when this rule was first adopted, and most of these new towers are owned by companies that do not own broadcast stations and have no incentive to stop a new broadcast station from leasing space on their facilities.  Also, the FCC noted that it is not the lack of access to tower space that limits the ability of potential broadcasters to launch new competitive stations in a market, but instead the lack of available spectrum in any community on which to operate a new FM or TV station. …
Continue Reading FCC Eliminates Rule Requiring Broadcast Station Tower Owners to Give Access to Competing Stations

Here are some of the regulatory and legal developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters – and a look ahead to the FCC’s consideration of two media modernization items in the coming week.  Links are also provided for you to find more information on how these actions may affect your operations.

  • This week,

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While we are approaching the end of summer in this most unusual year, the regulatory dates keep coming, though perhaps a bit slower than at other times of the year.  One of the big dates that broadcasters should be looking for is the announcement of the Annual Regulatory Fees that will likely be paid sometime in September.  This year, there has been much controversy over those fees, with the FCC proposing that broadcasters’ fees should go up even though the FCC’s budget is flat, while the NAB has argued that they should remain flat or decrease.  And many broadcast groups have argued for liberal waivers of the fee requirement in this year of the pandemic when so many stations were hit so hard by the economic downturn.  Watch for this decision – likely toward the end of the month.

The license renewal cycle continues in August for both radio and TV.  Full-power TV, Class A TV, TV translator and LPTV stations in North Carolina and South Carolina and full-power AM, FM, FM translator, and LPFM radio stations in Illinois and Wisconsin should be putting the finishing touches on their license renewal applications—due to be filed on or before August 3 (the deadline being the 3rd as the 1st of the month is a Saturday).  While stations are no longer required to air pre-filing announcements, the requirement to air post-filing announcements remains.  Those announcements must begin airing on August 1 and continue through October.  See our article about how to prepare for license renewal here.…
Continue Reading August 2020 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters:  TV and Radio License Renewals, EEO Reporting, FCC Open Meeting, Broadcast Internet Comments and More