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.
What are a noncommercial broadcaster’s obligations with respect to the political file and the rest of the FCC’s political broadcasting rules? That is a question that I have heard asked several times in the last few weeks as we approach this most important, and contentious, election. In short, I think that the answer to this question is that, in most cases, a noncommercial broadcaster will have few if any political file obligations. Why?
Broadcast stations that are licensed as noncommercial do not have any reasonable access requirements. What that means is that noncommercial stations do not have any obligation to sell time to political candidates or to make any free time available to the candidates for their messages. Years ago, reasonable access did apply to noncommercial stations, but when a DC-area congressional candidate used the statutory reasonable access requirements to force a local NPR affiliate (to which many on Capitol Hill listened) to air political commercials, Congress acted to abolish the reasonable access requirement as it applied to noncommercial stations. So, as noncommercial stations do not need to sell political time to candidates, they are not faced with the political file obligations which have triggered scrutiny from the FCC in recent months. But that is not to say that there could never be a political file obligation for a noncommercial station.
Continue Reading Noncommercial Broadcasters and the Political File
Where do all the Washington DC legal issues facing TV broadcasters stand? While we try on this Blog to write about many of those issues, we can’t always address everything that is happening. Every few months, my partner David O’Connor and I update a list of the legal and regulatory issues facing TV broadcasters.
With the October 1 deadline coming up for retransmission consent/must carry elections, and the likely commencement of many retransmission consent negotiations throughout the country, the FCC last week issued a decision that emphasizes the importance of “good faith” retransmission consent negotiations. In this action, the full Commission denied an Application for Review that sought to reverse the Media Bureau’s ruling that eighteen stations had failed to negotiate in good faith with an MVPD for retransmission consent. The Commission’s decision also included a Notice of Apparent Liability announcing that each station faces a $512,228 penalty for these violations of the requirements for good faith negotiation.
In May, we wrote about the earlier stages of this case where another licensee agreed to a consent decree based on essentially the same allegations addressed in last week’s decision. The consent decree was based on violations described in a decision of the FCC’s Media Bureau released last November (here) finding that 18 television station licensees, operating stations in separate markets, had failed to negotiate retransmission consent in good faith. Given the size of the proposed fines on the stations named in last week’s Notices of Apparent Liability, it is worth reviewing the basis of this decision. Even though many of the details are redacted to protect proprietary information, the basis for the decision can still be gleaned from this series of decisions.
Continue Reading FCC Proposes $512,228 in Fines to TV Stations for Violating Rules Requiring Good Faith Negotiation of Retransmission Consent Agreements
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.
Now that we are immersed in the heart of the political broadcasting season, issues of sponsorship identification regularly arise. For on-air broadcasts, any paid advertisement that conveys a message dealing with any controversial issue of public importance (state or federal) requires at a minimum an on-air sponsorship identification stating that the ad was “paid for” or “sponsored by” the person or organization that paid for the time. Federal candidates have a more extensive obligation for identifying themselves in their ads, particularly if they mention an opposing candidate. These identification rules come both from the FCC (which stations need to enforce) and from the Federal Election Commission, which are the responsibility of the candidate and their campaign committee. To help sort out some of these obligations, and the requirements for political disclosure statements and federal candidate certifications that entitle them to lowest unit rates, check out this video that I prepared for the Indiana Broadcasters Association as part of a series on political broadcasting topics: https://www.indianabroadcasters.org/iba-news/political-advertising-requirements-with-iba-washington-counsel-david-oxenford/
The video covers the requirements of broadcasters to ensure that the proper sponsorship identification is contained in political advertising. Online political advertising, however, is much more complicated as there is no single body of law that governs those responsibilities. As we wrote here, the FEC has general requirements providing that online political advertising must have sponsorship identification. The FEC also has an open proceeding to mandate more stringent sponsorship identification obligations akin to those required on broadcast and local cable political advertising. Last week, the Congressional Research Service issued a study on the state of the law regarding online political advertising, highlighting the many issues involved in providing more robust political disclosures. These issues are at least partially triggered by the many players involved in online advertising sales. There is a very readable outline on pages 16-19 of the report on all the players in the digital advertising ecosystem – with intermediaries, including demand- and supply-side platforms, that complicate the usual direct interaction between the media outlet and the advertising buyer, which in turn complicates the political compliance process for sponsorship identification. The study, on page 18, even cites to the article that I wrote discussing the concerns about sponsorship identification in any programmatic political advertising.
Continue Reading Sponsorship of Political Advertising On-Air and On-Line – A Video Presentation and a Congressional Research Service Study
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 Media Bureau yesterday issued its Fact Sheet for the Annual Regulatory Fees for 2020 – expanding on the information available in the various public notices released last week, about which we wrote here. This Fact Sheet sets out the general information as to how much is owed by various classes of broadcast stations. The actual fees owed by each station can be determined by entering the station’s call letter or Facility ID Number in the appropriate box on this FCC webpage. Contact the FCC if you believe that your fee assessment is incorrect.
In addition to the exemption from fees for any entity whose total regulatory obligation is less than $1000, the Fact Sheet also makes clear that FM translators, TV translators and LPTV stations that were not licensed as of October 1, 2019 need not pay a fee. If, for instance, you received a construction permit for a new FM translator that was not built and licensed until January 2020, then no fee is due. Caution, however, if that station had previously been licensed at a different location (or for LPTV or TV translators, on a different channel), and your construction permit just authorizes a change in an already licensed facility, fees do need to be paid. Similarly, if a station was licensed on October 1, 2019 and has since been surrendered or cancelled, a fee is still theoretically due.
Continue Reading Media Bureau Regulatory Fee Instructions Issued – No Fees for Translator CPs
The FCC released a Public Notice late Friday afternoon announcing the annual regulatory fees for 2020 will be due by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on September 25, and setting out the procedures for payment. Another Public Notice announced that the fee filing system is now open to accept fee payment. A third Public Notice set out the procedures for asking for a waiver of the fees based on financial hardship. That notice also sets out how licensees can ask for permission to pay on an installment basis. A further public notice from the Media Bureau, providing details on the filing process for broadcasters, should be released shortly (Update – 9/9/20 – you can read about the Media Bureau Fact Sheet here).
The procedures Public Notice makes clear that all payments need to be made electronically using the Fee Filer system. These payments can be made by any of the following methods:
However, you cannot rack up unlimited points on your credit card, as credit card transactions are limited to $24,999.99 in a single day. The FCC also made clear that entities that owe total annual regulatory fees of $1000 or less are exempt from paying the fees, as these fees are considered de minimis – essentially the costs of collection outweigh the amount that the FCC would otherwise receive.
Continue Reading 2020 Annual Regulatory Fees Due by September 25 – Fee Filer Now Open and FCC Accepting Waiver Requests
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.
