Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the last two weeks, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
As the holiday season comes to an end and 2022 comes into focus, broadcasters have several dates and deadlines to keep up with in January and early February. We have noted below some of the important dates you should be tracking. However, as always, stay in touch with your station’s lawyers and other regulatory advisors for the dates applicable to your operations. We wish you a happy, healthy, and successful New Year – and remembering to track important regulatory dates will help you achieve those ends.
Let’s start with some of the annual dates that always fall in January. By January 10, full-power radio, TV, and Class A licensees should have their quarterly issues/programs lists uploaded to their online public file. The lists are meant to identify the issues of importance to the station’s community and the programs that the station broadcast in October, November, and December that addressed those issues. Prepare the lists carefully and accurately, as they are the only official records of how your station is serving the public and addressing the needs and interests of its community. See our post here for more on this obligation.
Continue Reading January Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: Issues/Programs Lists; Digital LPTV Deadline; Audio Description Expansion; Children’s Programming, Webcasting Royalties; NCE FM Settlement Window; and More
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.
According to a joint letter posted on the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC) website, GMR and the RMLC are discussing a settlement of their long-running litigation over the royalties that the commercial radio industry will pay for the public performance of music written by GMR composers. We last wrote about GMR here when, earlier this year, they last extended their interim license offered to commercial radio stations, with a substantial increase in the amount that stations needed to pay to remain licensed during the litigation. The joint letter says that the interim license will be extended for another 3 months while the parties work on this possible settlement. Stations will not receive any direct notice about the need to extend their licenses from GMR. Instead, stations are to go to the GMR website at https://globalmusicrights.com/interimextension to complete a form to remain licensed after the end of December.
As background, GMR is a new performing rights organization. Like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, it represents songwriters and collects royalties from music users for the public performance of these songwriter’s compositions. GMR collects not only from radio stations, but from all music users – it has already reached out to business music services that provide the music played in retail stores, restaurants and other businesses, and no doubt has or will license other companies that make music available to the public. Most songwriters represented by GMR used to be represented by ASCAP or BMI, but these songwriters have withdrawn from ASCAP and BMI and joined GMR, allegedly to attempt to increase the amounts that they are paid for the use of the songs that they have written. For radio, these withdrawals became effective in January 2017, when the old license agreements between ASCAP and BMI and the commercial radio industry expired. Since then, radio stations have been signing interim licenses to play GMR music.
Continue Reading Another GMR Extension Offered for Commercial Radio Music Licenses – And a Possibility of a Settlement of the Litigation with the RMLC?
The deadline for 2022 candidates in Texas to file for a place on the March 1 primary ballot was this past Monday. Deadlines in other states will follow during the first part of 2022. As a result, broadcast stations and cable companies in Texas are already dealing with legally qualified candidates, and the FCC political rules that attach to those candidates. Stations in other states will follow soon. Even before these deadlines, stations are dealing with buys from potential candidates, PACs, and other third-party groups looking to establish positions for the important 2022 elections. Spending on political advertising is sure to increase as the new year rolls around, and some suggest that it could rival that spent in 2020. What should broadcast stations be thinking about now to get ready for the 2022 elections?
We have written about some of the issues that broadcasters should already be considering in our Political Broadcasting Guide (which we plan to update shortly). Obviously, one of the primary issues is lowest unit rates, which become effective 45 days before the primaries (or before any caucus which is open to members of the general public). In Texas, those rates will begin in mid-January for the March 1 primary, and lowest unit charge (“LUC”) windows will open in other states throughout the first part of 2022. With these rate windows soon to be upon us, stations should begin the process of determining what rates will apply during the window, as stations are no doubt now writing packages with spots that will be running during the window. In addition to our Political Broadcasting Guide, we wrote about other issues you should be considering in determining your lowest unit rates here. These articles provide just an outline of issues to consider in determining the rates that will apply in the window, so start conversations now with your attorney and political advertising advisors to make sure that these rates are being determined accurately and in compliance with FCC rules and policies.
Continue Reading Candidate Filing Deadline for the Primaries in the Texas 2022 Elections Just Passed – What Should Your Station, No Matter Where It Is, Be Doing to Prepare for the Coming Election Advertising Deluge?
An auction of construction permits for 27 new TV stations is scheduled to occur in June 2022, as we noted in one of our weekly updates on regulatory activities for broadcasters. This auction will be the first auction of new TV channels in over a decade – and the first in over a decade and
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.
On December 2, 2021, the FCC held a forum on the accessibility of video programming delivered through online platforms (a recording of the event is available on the FCC website, here). What is perhaps most notable about this forum is that it looked at whether the FCC could extend its authority over online platforms to include accessibility obligations which, thus far, have only been implicated when a broadcaster already subject to FCC accessibility obligations repurposes its programs for Internet use (see, for instance, the FCC’s significant fine imposed in a consent decree when Pluto TV, which is owned by Viacom CBS, rebroadcast certain content that had already been broadcast on television with captions). One of the questions identified in the Public Notice announcing the Forum is whether the FCC has the authority to expand accessibility obligations to online platforms.
The seeming importance of the session could be seen from the introductory remarks by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Senator Ed Markey. Senator Markey was one of the proponents of the Twenty First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA). In his remarks, he discussed the importance of taking the reforms that have been adopted for television programming and extending them to the Internet, given that so much video programming and viewership is now migrating to those platforms.
Continue Reading FCC Forum on Accessibility of Online Video Programming – Looking Beyond the Regulation of Broadcasters
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.
On Tuesday, we were deluged with press inquiries about Dr. Oz’s declaration that he was going to seek the open US Senate seat in Pennsylvania – with many questions as to whether his syndicated television program would subject stations that aired it to equal time obligations. The Doctor avoided issues for stations by immediately terminating his participation on the program, but the events of this week highlight that, with 2022 expected to be a very busy election season that will soon be upon us, many stations may be facing the question of what to do when an on-air employee decides to seek election to a public office.
We have written about this issue many times before, including coverage of when well-known local or national personalities have contemplated runs for office – see our stories here, here and here. In 2017, we wrote another article here, updating prior articles on the same subject. While the rules have not changed in the 15 years that we have been writing about it, it seems that there are always questions, so it is worth revisiting the issues again.
Continue Reading Dr. Oz Decides to Run for the Senate – What to Do When Your On-Air Employee Decides to Run for Public Office
