Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • President Trump issued several Executive Orders that could affect FCC decision-making, including an Executive Order suspending government diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; and an Executive Order advising federal departments and agencies to freeze implementing or proposing new regulations for 60 days until they have been reviewed by the appropriate department or agency head appointed by the President.  While it is unclear whether Executive Orders can legally bind independent agencies such as the FCC, we have already seen FCC Chairman Carr’s acting in accordance with the Trump directives.  For instance:
    • Carr announced that the FCC will end its DEI initiatives.  While his announcement does not specifically address broadcast EEO policies, Carr vigorously opposed the FCC’s reinstatement of FCC Form 395-B, which requires that broadcasters yearly prepare a report classifying all of its employees by race, gender, and employment position (see the discussions of this obligation on our Broadcast Law Blog here, here, and here).  As an oral argument on Court challenges to the FCC’s reinstatement of the form is scheduled for February 4, we may soon see how Carr’s announcement is applied to the FCC’s defense of that form.  FCC Commissioner Gomez released a statement opposing the end of the FCC’s DEI initiatives. 
  • The FCC’s Media and Enforcement Bureaus reinstated the Center for American Rights’ complaints against TV stations owned by the ABC, NBC, and CBS broadcast networks for aspects of their coverage of the 2024 presidential campaign.  These complaints alleged that the stations violated FCC rules prohibiting broadcast news distortion or those requiring equal opportunities for political candidates.  As we discussed in our weekly update last week, as one of the last major actions of the Commission under former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, CAR’s complaints (along with those of other parties and a complaint against the renewal of a Fox television station) were dismissed by the Bureaus, finding no evidence to support claims of FCC rule violations and that any action on the complaints would involve the FCC in a prohibited intrusion on the First Amendment.  In this week’s action, the Bureaus, under acting Chiefs newly appointed by Carr,  stated that the dismissals of the complaints were premature because they were based on an insufficient record and that they required further investigation. FCC Commissioner Gomez issued a statement opposing the reinstatement of these complaints.
  • There was a Federal Register announcement of the opening of a comment cycle for a petition for reconsideration filed against the FCC’s September 2024 First Report and Order allowing FM stations to operate at different power levels on their upper and lower digital sidebands and permitting FM stations to begin such service simply by notifying the FCC (we noted the First Report and Order in a weekly update here).  The Petitioner raises several arguments against the order and concerns about digital “HD” operations in general, particularly complaining about HD interference to Class A FM stations.  The Petitioner’s proposals include that the FCC should require an FCC application or direct notice to affected stations before an HD operation is implemented and an annual filing of evidence of a station’s continued compliance with their HD authorizations; it should allow objections to HD operations based on real or predicted interference to other FM stations; and that the FCC should provide Class A FM stations with greater interference protection from HD stations.  Comments and reply comments responding to the petition are due February 6 and February 18, respectively.
  • The Federal Register notice of the FCC’s TV blackout reporting requirements adopted last month were sent to the Office of Management and Budget for review before they can take effect.  In December, the FCC released a Report and Order requiring multichannel video programming distributors to report TV station blackouts resulting from failed retransmission consent negotiations (see the discussion of that order in our weekly update here).  
  • The FCC released a Small Entity Compliance Guide summarizing the “all-in” pricing rule adopted in its April 2024 Report and Order.  The rule requires cable operators and direct broadcast satellite providers to provide the “all-in” price for video programming as a single line item in promotional materials and on subscribers’ bills, including charges for broadcast retransmission consent, regional sports, and other programming.  Cable operators and DBS providers had to begin complying with the “all-in” rule last month.  Small cable operators (those with $47 million or less in annual receipts), however, have until March 19 to comply with the rule.

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • The FCC’s Enforcement and Media Bureaus, under a new Docket opened by the Commission called “Preserving the First Amendment,” dismissed complaints by the Center for American Rights and other parties against TV stations owned by ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, alleging that their news coverage violated the FCC’s rules governing, among other things, broadcast news distortion and equal opportunities for political candidates.  FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel (citing calls by President-Elect Trump to revoke broadcast licenses for content that he did not like, stated “First, the FCC should not be the President’s speech police. Second, the FCC should not be journalism’s censor-in-chief”) and Commissioner Gomez released statements supporting the dismissal of the complaints. 
    • The Enforcement Bureau dismissed CAR’s complaint against the Philadelphia ABC station alleging news distortion during its broadcast of the Presidential debate on September 10, 2024.  The Bureau found that ABC’s fact checking during the debate was not evidence that ABC intentionally distorted its debate coverage.
    • The Enforcement Bureau also dismissed CAR’s compliant against the New York CBS station alleging news distortion in its broadcast of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.  The Bureau found no evidence that the CBS decisions were intentional attempts to falsify news as opposed to the exercise of its editorial discretion. 
    • The Media Bureau dismissed CAR’s complaint against the New York NBC station alleging that NBC violated the FCC’s equal opportunities rule when Vice President Harris and Senator Tim Kaine appeared on Saturday Night Live without also inviting competing candidates President-Elect Trump and Hung Cao to do so.  The Bureau reviewed precedent that said that equal opportunities does not require that competing candidates get exactly the same access, but instead only requires that competing candidates, upon request, get access to airtime with comparable audiences.  NBC did so by running Trump and Cao’s ads in the days after the SNL episode during broadcast programming with comparable, and likely larger, audiences. 
    • The Media Bureau also dismissed a petition to deny and informal objections filed against the Fox’s Philadelphia station license renewal application.  The petition and objections argued that the station’s renewal application should be denied principally because cable channel Fox News aired false statements regarding Dominion Voting Systems following the 2020 Presidential Election.  The Bureau granted the renewal application after finding no evidence that the station aired false information regarding Dominion and that there was no final Court decision in the Dominion case finding egregious conduct that could be attributed to the character of the station’s owner.
  • President Trump nominated Olivia Trusty as the FCC’s third Republican Commissioner.  Trusty currently serves as a staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee under Chairman Roger Wicker.  If confirmed by the Senate, Trusty will assume outgoing Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s seat on the Commission.  FCC Commissioners Gomez and Starks issued statements congratulating Trusty on her nomination. 
  • The National Association of Broadcasters released The Future of Television Initiative Report detailing the findings of a process initiated by the NAB and FCC to bring together stakeholders from across the television industry (including consumer advocates) to make recommendations for the successful deployment of the ATSC 3.0 NextGen Television standard.  According to an NAB Blog about the report, it explores “market-based and other solutions to minimize the cost to consumers of ATSC 3.0 equipment, ramping up consumer education on the benefits of ATSC 3.0 and encouraging further collaboration between MVPDs and broadcasters and within industry standards bodies to resolve MVPD carriage concerns.”
  • Reply comments were filed in response to the amended Paramount-Skydance Media transfer applications proposing that David Ellison acquire a controlling stake in the company and become its Chairman and CEO.  CAR urges the FCC to condition the transaction’s approval on the company ensuring viewpoint diversity by: (1) including individuals from different ideological backgrounds on its board of directors; (2) locating its executive and editorial staff outside of New York and Los Angeles; (3) targeting conservative universities and media companies for employee recruiting; and (4) appointing an independent overseer of the company’s efforts on this issue.  CAR also urges the FCC to scrutinize the company’s non-voting foreign investor (which the FCC normally does not do when a foreign investor has less than a 25% interest in a licensee and lacks influence over the company’s management) because the Department of Defense considers this investor to be a Chinese military company.  FUSE Media suggests that the FCC should designate the transaction for hearing to examine whether the new company’s intended use of Oracle technology could cause it to favor its own programming over unaffiliated programming.  An unsuccessful bidder for Paramount claims that the applicants’ failure to disclose certain matters in separate litigation proceedings raised questions regarding its broadcast licensee qualifications.  See our updates here, here, here, and here on the transaction and the comments previously filed in this proceeding.
  • The FCC announced that January 15 is the effective date for the increased fines for violations of statutorily-set FCC requirements that were adopted to reflect inflation earlier this month.  This includes an increase in the maximum fine for broadcast indecency to $508,373 for each day of a violation, with a maximum of $4,692,668 for a continuing violation; and for pirate radio to a maximum fine of $2,453,218.
  • The FCC submitted its annual report on pirate radio to Congress summarizing its enforcement efforts against pirate radio operators in FY 2024: issuing six fines, proposing 18 fines, and issuing 41 Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting – of which 22 resulted from pirate radio sweeps by the Enforcement Bureau’s field offices.
    • The Enforcement Bureau also issued two Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting this week to landowners in Boston, Massachusetts (for an unlicensed AM radio station) and Norwalk, Connecticut.  The Bureau warned the landowners that the FCC may issue fines of up to the previously maximum fine of $2,391,097 under the PIRATE Radio Act if the landowners continue permitting pirate radio broadcasts from their properties.
  • The Media Bureau announced that certain device manufacturers and Multichannel Video Programming Distributors must make closed captioning display settings “readily accessible” to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing beginning on August 17, 2026.  The FCC adopted the requirement last year, which applies to all U.S.-manufactured devices using a picture screen that receives or plays back video programming simultaneously with sound (such as TVs, smartphones, tablets, and computers) and to MVPDs providing their customers with covered devices to use their services.  We last noted this proceeding in a weekly update in September, when the FCC released a compliance guide for entities subject to the rule,
  • The Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Violation against a Virginia AM station after an inspection revealed that its tower’s lights were out, the station failed to maintain the tower’s perimeter fence, and the station did not notify the FAA of the light outage.  The Bureau also found that the station was not operating pursuant to its license and did not file a transfer of control application after its owner’s death.  The station must now explain to the Bureau how it will correct the rule violations and prevent future violations from occurring. 
  • The Media Bureau and Office of Managing Director issued an Order to Pay or to Show Cause against a Texas FM station proposing to revoke the station’s license unless, within 60 days, the station pays its delinquent regulatory fees and interest, administrative costs, and penalties, or shows that the debts are not owed or should be waived or deferred.  The station has an unpaid regulatory fee debt totaling $7,553.84 for fiscal years 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, and 2022.
  • The Media Bureau issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing the substitution of UHF channel 29 for VHF channel 13 at Monroe, Louisiana due to the inferior quality of VHF channel signals.  The petition serves as another example of the superiority of UHF channels for the transmission of digital TV signals.
  • The Media Bureau dismissed a new Georgia LPFM construction permit application for failing to meet the FCC’s LPFM localism requirement because the applicant’s headquarters and all of its directors’ residences were located more than 10 miles from the proposed station’s transmitter site (the limit for LPFM applicants outside of the top 50 urban markets). 

On our Broadcast Law Blog, we discussed how the FCC’s $369,190 proposed fine against a Texas TV station for improper participation in Emergency Alert Service tests demonstrates that ignorance of the FCC rules does not provide an excuse for noncompliance – even when the broadcaster makes a misguided attempt to comply with the FCC’s rules.  This is particularly true for violations of rules dealing with public safety matters, like those here involving EAS.   

A decision from the past week shows that the FCC shows no mercy for broadcasters who don’t know the rules, even when the broadcaster attempts to comply.  The FCC proposed a $369,190 fine against a Texas TV station because the station’s employees did not know how to properly participate in the 2018, 2019, and 2021 nationwide Emergency Alert Service tests.  According to the Notice of Apparent Liability, the station employees apparently knew that Nationwide EAS Tests were to be conducted in these years.  But, from the recitation of the facts, it appears that the station employees did not understand what was supposed to happen during these tests.  Rather than retransmitting the test alert conveyed either by IPAWs (the internet-based delivery system for EAS alerts) or by the traditional over-the-air daisy chain transmission, the station itself created an alert using the test language from some old alerts and transmitted that information on the air.  As the FCC noted in the Notice, that is not what the rule requires and does not further the purpose of the test as it does nothing to show whether the EAS alerting system works to pass along messages from the alert originator to the stations and then to the public.

This issue was compounded by the station filing reports on its participation in the test in the EAS Testing Reporting System certifying that it had received the alerts and retransmitted them as required by the rules.  While the station claimed that it tried to comply with the EAS testing requirements and that its failure to live up to the letter of the law was due to its inexperienced staff not knowing how to receive and retransmit the actual EAS test signals, the FCC rejected the station’s argument.  In fact, the Commission decided to propose more than the base fines for these violations (base fines are on the order of $8000 for each of the four violations, plus separate fines for the reporting issues) because of their repeated nature and given the fact that the apparent violations relate to public safety issues. The large fine for these violations illustrate several concerns for broadcasters – including that ignorance is no excuse for broadcast violations.

Continue Reading A $369,190 Proposed Fine for Improper Participation in EAS Tests Shows that Ignorance of FCC Rules Is No Excuse for Noncompliance

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • The FCC released an Order increasing by an average of more than 17% its application fees, including those for broadcast station applications, to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index.  FCC Chairman-designate Carr issued a concurring statement highlighting that the fee increases will place an undue burden on entrepreneurs in FCC regulated entities, but reluctantly voting to approve the increases as the FCC is required by statute to adjust the fees to reflect inflation.  The new fees will take effect 30 days after the Order’s publication in the Federal Register.  On our Broadcast Law Blog, we provided more details on the increases and suggested that, where possible (e.g., in connection with internal company reorganizations or for planned technical changes), broadcasters file applications soon to beat the implementation of these increased fees.
  • The FCC proposed a $369,190 fine against a Texas TV station for failing to participate in the 2018, 2019, and 2021 nationwide Emergency Alert Service tests and for submitting false or misleading EAS Test Reporting System reports.  The station claimed that it made a good faith effort to comply with the EAS testing requirements by simulating its own EAS tests because its inexperienced staff did not know how to receive and retransmit the actual EAS test signals.  The Bureau rejected the station’s argument as the station’s staff ignorance of the law does not excuse a failure to comply with the rules.  The Bureau decided to propose more than the base fines for these violations because of their repeated nature and given the fact that they relate to public safety issues. 
  • The FCC released its quarterly Broadcast Station Totals.  The release shows that, compared to the same release from a year ago, there are 61 fewer AM stations and 38 fewer commercial FM stations, but 191 more noncommercial FM stations.  There were also 13 more commercial UHF TV stations but 8 fewer commercial VHF TV stations, and 1 more noncommercial UHF TV station but 2 fewer noncommercial VHF TV stations. 
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics released the Seventh Report on Ownership of Broadcast Stations.  The report provides a breakdown of the gender, race, and ethnicity of broadcast station attributable owners as of October 1, 2023, based on the ownership information filed by stations in their 2023 Biennial Ownership Reports. 
  • The FCC and its Enforcement Bureau took several actions against pirate radio broadcasters:
    • The Enforcement Bureau issued three Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting to landowners in Providence, Rhode Island, Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Bronx, New York for allegedly allowing pirates to broadcast from their properties.  The Bureau warned the landowners that the FCC may issue fines of up to what is currently the maximum fine of $2,391,097 under the PIRATE Radio Act if the FCC determines that the landowners continue permitting pirate radio broadcasts from their properties.  As we noted here, the Enforcement Bureau recently adjusted for inflation the maximum fine for pirate broadcasting to $2,453,218, an increase which will take effect once the Bureau’s order is published in the Federal Register.
  • The Media Bureau issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requesting comments on a TV station’s proposed substitution of UHF channel 15 for VHF channel 11 at Price, Utah due to the inferior quality of VHF channels for digital transmissions.  The station states that if the substitution is granted, it will convert its facilities to a Distributed Transmission System to serve viewers on the other side of the mountains separating Price and Provo, Utah. 
  • The Media Bureau cancelled a proposed fine of $3,000 against a Texas FM station for failing to timely file its license renewal application.  The Bureau cancelled the fine because the station demonstrated that it attempted to file the application on time but was unable to do so because of FCC database issues beyond its control. 

The FCC released an Order this week announcing an upcoming increase in application fees to be paid on any “feeable” application.  For commercial broadcasters, that includes applications for technical changes in facilities, applications for assignments or transfers of control of broadcast companies and stations, license renewal applications, requests for Special Temporary Authority when a station is silent or not operating with its authorized facilities, and even Biennial Ownership Reports (due to be filed by December 1, 2025).  The FCC is required by law to adjust its fees every two years to account for increases in the Consumer Price Index. With the recent increases in inflation in all sectors of the economy, FCC fees, like everything else, will be going up – by an average of about 17.4%, which follows an increase of 11.6% that was imposed in 2022 (see our article here).  This year’s increases brought a concurring statement from Chairman-designate Carr, who observed that these steep increases in fees most hurt smaller entrepreneurs who cannot afford new additional costs.  But, he states that there is not much that the FCC can do as Congress has mandated that these fees increase with inflation  The changes will be effective 30 days after the schedule of fees is published in the Federal Register – so broadcasters who want to save a few dollars on technical changes or other applications that they know to be coming up would be well advised to get their applications on file sooner rather than later.

Fees do not apply to most applications by noncommercial licensees.  Otherwise, the fees apply to most requests by broadcasters for FCC actions.  New fees will also take effect for non-broadcast services including private radio and satellite services for which some broadcasters hold authorizations, as well as for broadcast auxiliary applications (processed by the FCC’s Wireless Bureau). For the principal broadcast services administered by the FCC’s Media Bureau, here are the new fees that will take effect sometime in 2025 – watch for the effective date to be announced in the near future:

§1.1104  Schedule of charges for applications and other filings for media services.

Table 1 to § 1.1104

Full power commercial and class A television stations
TYPE OF APPLICATIONPAYMENT TYPE CODEFEE AMOUNT
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMVT$5,000/application (if no Auction)
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMVS$5,675/application (if Auction, include Post-Auction, Consolidated Long & Short Form Fee)
Minor Modification, Construction PermitMPT$1,565/application
New LicenseMJT$425/application
License RenewalMGT$370/application
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 314 &  (long form)MPU$1,460/station
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 316 & (short form)MDT$475/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 315 & (long form)MPU$1,460/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 316 & (short form)MDT$475/station
Call SignMBT$190/application
Special Temporary AuthorityMPV$315/application
Petition for Rulemaking for New Community of LicenseMRT$3,985/petition
Biennial Ownership Report (Full Power TV Stations Only)MAT$95/station

Table 2 to § 1.1104

Commercial AM radio stations
TYPE OF APPLICATIONPAYMENT TYPE CODEFEE AMOUNT
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMUR$4,675/application
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMVR$5,350/application
Minor Modification, Construction PermitMVU$1,910/application
New LicenseMMR$755/application
AM Directional AntennaMOR$1,480/application
License RenewalMGR$365/application
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 314 & (long form)MPR$1,180/station
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 316 & (short form)MDR$500/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 315 & (long form)MPR$1,180/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 316 & (short form)MDR$500/station
Call SignMBR$190/application
Special Temporary AuthorityMVV$325/application
Biennial Ownership ReportMAR$95/station

Table 3 to § 1.1104

Commercial FM radio stations
TYPE OF APPLICATIONPAYMENT TYPE CODEFEE AMOUNT
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMTR$3,870/application, if no Auction
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMVW$4,545/application, if Auction, include Consolidated Long and Short Form Fee
Minor Modification, Construction PermitMVX$1,485/application
New LicenseMHR$275/application
FM Directional AntennaMLR$705/application
License RenewalMGR$365/application
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 314 & (long form)MPR$1,180/station
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 316 & (short form)MDR$500/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 315 & (long form)MPR$1,180/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 316 & (short form)MDR$500/station
Call SignMBR$190/application
Special Temporary AuthorityMVY$235/application
Petition for Rulemaking for New Community of LicenseMRR$3,735/petition
Biennial Ownership ReportMAR$95/station

Table 4 to § 1.1104

FM translators
TYPE OF APPLICATIONPAYMENT TYPE CODEFEE AMOUNT
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMOF$830/application, if no Auction
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMVZ$1,505/application, if Auction, include Consolidated Long and Short Form Fee
Minor Modification, Construction PermitMWA$235/application
New LicenseMEF$210/application
FM Translator/Booster License RenewalMAF$205/application
FM Translator/Booster Spec. Temp. Auth.MWB$190/application
FM Translator License Assignment (2100 Schedule 345, 314 , & 316)MDF$325/station
FM Translator Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 345, 315, & 316)MDF$325/station
FM Booster, New or Major Change, Construction PermitMOF$830/station
FM Booster, New LicenseMEF$210/application
FM Booster, Special Temporary AuthorityMWB$190/application

Table 5 to § 1.1104

Section 310(b)(4) Foreign Ownership Petition
TYPE OF APPLICATIONPAYMENT TYPE CODEFEE AMOUNT
Foreign Ownership Petition (separate and additional fee required for underlying application, if any)MWC$2,920/application

Table 6 to § 1.1104

TV translators and LPTV stations
TYPE OF APPLICATIONPAYMENT TYPE CODEFEE AMOUNT
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMOL$910/application, if no Auction
New or Major Change, Construction PermitMOK$1,585/application, if Auction, include Consolidated Long and Short Form Fee
New LicenseMEL$250/application
License RenewalMAL$170/application
Special Temporary AuthorityMGL$315/application
License Assignment (2100 Schedule 345, 314, & 316)MDL$375/station
Transfer of Control (2100 Schedule 345, 315, & 316)MDL$375/station
Call SignMBT$190/application

We took last week off for the holidays and today bring you the regulatory developments of interest to broadcasters from the past two weeks, which we discuss below with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • The Commission released a Report and Order requiring reporting by MVPDs of blackouts of their carriage of commercial television signals (including Class A and LPTV signals already on a system) that last more than 24 hours due to the failure of retransmission consent negotiations.  The reports will be filed in a portal to be developed by the Media Bureau.  The reports will require the system to not only identify the station(s) being blacked out, but also a good-faith estimate of the number of subscribers affected.  Another notice will need to be filed when a blackout is resolved. 
  • The FCC released its 2024 Communications Marketplace Report, which the agency releases every two years to analyze, among other things, the state of competition in the radio and TV marketplaces.  The FCC provides the report to Congress to advise it on economic and competitive trends in regulated industries.  FCC Chairman-designate Carr and Commissioner Simington released statements criticizing the FCC’s continued reliance in the report on a decades-old approach to analyzing competition based on discrete market sectors instead of accounting for how communications service providers, including broadcasters, currently face competition across all market sectors and not just their own.
  • The FCC announced the tentative agenda for its January 15 Open Meeting.  Due to the impending transition to a Republican-led FCC, the FCC will not act on any substantive matters at what will be FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s last regular monthly Open Meeting.  Instead, the FCC will hear presentations on the status of the agency’s work on matters including expanding access to communications, and on national security, public safety, and consumer protection issues. 
  • Comments were due in response to the National Association of Broadcasters’ proposal that TV stations comply with the FCC’s audible crawl rule by providing “textual crawls that provide emergency information duplicative or equivalent to the information conveyed by the visual image” (see our discussion here).  The rule that the NAB is seeking to change requires TV stations to provide an aural description transmitted on the station’s SAP channel of non-textual emergency information, such as maps or other graphic displays, conveyed outside of station newscasts, so that the emergency information can be received by those who are blind or have visual impairments.  As we discussed here last month, the Media Bureau retroactively extended the waiver of this requirement from November 26 (when it went into effect after the previous waiver expired) through the earlier of May 27, 2025 or when the FCC rules on the NAB’s proposal.  The Society for Broadcast Engineers states that adopting the NAB’s proposal would allow stations to provide the greatest amount of emergency information to the public and fulfill the underlying purpose of the rule.  A broadcaster states that unless the NAB’s proposal is adopted by the FCC, stations will either need to continue relying on waivers of the rule or they will cease disseminating visual emergency information altogether due to the lack of workable technology to convert graphical information into audio.  The American Federation for the Blind “cautiously” supports the NAB’s proposal if the information provided by stations in an accessible text crawl is the same as the information provided by the nontextual graphic.  The AFB urged the NAB and broadcasters to continue to work to find solutions – through AI or otherwise, that will assure that the same emergency information reaches the blind as reaches others in a TV station’s coverage area.
  • Paramount, Skydance Media, and other parties filed a Consolidated Opposition to Petitions and Response to Comments responding to objections to the amended Paramount-Skydance Media transfer applications proposing that David Ellison acquire a controlling stake in the company, in addition to serving as its Chairman and CEO (see our discussion here, here, and here).  Among the arguments made by the applicants was one stating that the Center for American Rights’ proposal for FCC-imposed benchmarks to rectify CBS’s purported political bias in their news programming would violate the First Amendment and would entangle the FCC in broadcast editorial policies.  The applicants dismiss CAR’s concerns regarding a minority investor in Ellison’s company with alleged close ties to the Chinese Communist Party as the non-voting investor would have no ability to influence the operation or management of the company or its broadcast stations.  The applicants also state that Fuse Media’s claims about the transaction’s potential harms to the streaming video marketplace are speculative and outside of the FCC’s authority.  Finally, the applicants argue that the complaints raised by an unsuccessful bidder and a Paramount shareholder regarding business issues with the transaction are outside the scope of the FCC’s application review process and are being litigated separately in court.
  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau released an Order adjusting to take account of inflation the amounts of certain fines.  This includes maximum fines for broadcast indecency which now will, once this Order is published in the Federal Register, increase to $508,373 for each day of a violation, with a maximum of $4,692,668 for a continuing violation.  For pirate radio, the new maximum fines will be $2,453,218.
    • The Enforcement Bureau issued Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting against landowners in Concord, Ohio, Piqua, Ohio, and Mattapan, Massachusetts for allegedly allowing pirates to broadcast from their properties.  The Bureau warned the landowners that the FCC may issue fines of up to what is now the maximum fine of $2,391,097 under the PIRATE Radio Act if the FCC determines that the landowners continue to permit pirate radio broadcasts from their properties after receiving these notices.
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with a group of Arizona radio stations to resolve its investigation of a series of unauthorized transfers of control among the stations’ owners.  The Bureau found that the stations failed to seek prior FCC consent to their transfer from their original owners into a trust, then failed to notify the FCC of the death of one of the trust’s trustees, and finally failed to seek prior FCC consent for the appointment of a new trustee for the trust.  The Consent Decree requires the stations to pay a $7,500 civil penalty and enter into a compliance plan to ensure that future violations of the FCC’s transfer of control rules do not occur. 
  • The Media Bureau also proposed a $5,000 fine against a Nevada Class A TV station for several Online Inspection File recordkeeping violations that the station disclosed in its license renewal application.  After reviewing the station’s OPIF, the Bureau found that the station failed to timely upload ten Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists during its previous license term. 
  • Obligations under the Corporate Transparency Act requiring most companies operating in the U.S. to file ownership information, including information about foreign owners, with U.S. Treasury Department were scheduled to go into effect in this month, but the requirement has been put on hold for now by an Order the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit while the Court considers substantive arguments about the Act’s requirements.

On our Broadcast Law Blog, we published our summary of regulatory dates and deadlines for broadcasters in January, as well as our Broadcasters Regulatory Calendar identifying regulatory deadlines for all of 2025, including lowest unit charge political windows for state and local elections that will occur this year. We also provided our look into our crystal ball at the potential legal and policy issues that we think will be addressed by the new Commission this year.

2025 has begun – and everyone is speculating as to what the New Year will bring, particularly given the upcoming change in administration in the White House and at the FCC.  Yesterday, we published an article looking at some of the regulatory issues that we expect the FCC will address this year.  And we promised to let you know about some of the deadlines that are already on the 2025 calendar.  So, as we do each year at about this time, we put together a look at the regulatory dates ahead for broadcasters.  To that end, we offer for your review, our 2025 Broadcasters Regulatory Calendar.  While this calendar should not be viewed as an exhaustive list of every regulatory date or deadline that your station will face, it highlights many of the most important dates for broadcasters in the coming year – including dates for EEO Public Inspection File Reports, Quarterly Issues Programs lists, children’s television obligations, annual fee obligations, the Biennial Ownership Report due later this year, and much more.

Unlike 2024, this year will not bring the flood of Presidential and Congressional political advertising that we see in even numbered years.  But there still will be important and likely hotly contested state and local races that will involve local political advertising.  This will include governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, the New York City mayoral race, and likely other local races, special elections, issue advertising, and possibly even the start of campaigning for the 2026 Congressional elections.  So, we have included a list of local elections that we have been able to identify, and the associated lowest unit rate windows for each of those elections.  Remember, while you don’t have to accept advertising from state and local candidates, once you accept it from one candidate in a race, all of the political rules (including equal time, lowest unit rates, and political file obligations) apply.  See our article here on how the other political broadcasting rules apply to state and local elections, and our article here on what you should be doing to prepare for future elections.

Certainly, as the year progresses, there will be plenty more dates to note, particularly with the new Commission which is quite likely to make changes to existing requirements.  Keep in mind that some deadlines listed here may be changed by the FCC, or new ones may be added.  And we may have missed some obligations that apply specifically to your stations.  So do your own research to stay on top of your regulatory obligations.  Follow our blog where we post a weekly summary of the prior week’s regulatory actions relevant to broadcasters and a look ahead prior to the start of each month at the regulatory dates in the coming month.  Read other newsletters and trade publications and consult your own attorney to stay on top of the regulatory obligations that apply to your stations.  We hope that this 2025 Broadcaster’s Regulatory Calendar will give you a good start on spotting some of the important dates that may be ahead and affect your operations.

It’s a new year, and as has been our custom at the beginning of each year, we dust off the crystal ball and take a look at what we think may be some of the significant regulatory and legislative issues that broadcasters will be facing in 2025.  This year, there is an extra layer of uncertainty given a new administration, both in the White House and at the FCC.  Already, it appears that a new administration will bring new priorities – some barely on the radar in past years – to the top of the list of the issues that broadcasters will need to be carefully monitoring.

One of those issues has been a possible FCC review of the meaning of the “public interest” standard under which all broadcasters are governed.  As we wrote when President-Elect Trump announced his pick for the new FCC Chair starting on Inauguration Day, Chair-Designate Brendan Carr has indicated that this public interest proceeding will be a high priority.  In his opinion, broadcasters, or perhaps more specifically the news media, have suffered from an erosion of trust, and it has been his expressed opinion that a reexamination of the public interest standard might help to restore public trust.  We noted in our article upon his selection that this is not the first time that there has been a re-examination of that standard.  It has traditionally been difficult to precisely define what the standard means.  In the coming days, we will be writing more about this issue.  But suffice it to say that we are hopeful that any new examination does not lead to more paperwork obligations for broadcasters, as seemingly occurred whenever any broadcast issue was addressed by the current administration.  As we note below, there are several paperwork burdens that we think may disappear in the new administration, so we are not expecting more paper – but we will all need to be carefully watching what develops from any re-examination of the public interest standard.

Continue Reading Looking Into the Crystal Ball – What Legal and Policy Issues are Ahead for Broadcasters in 2025?

As 2024 comes to an end, 2025 is beginning to come into focus – a new year that will likely bring big changes to the Washington broadcast regulation scene with the inauguration of a new President and installation of a new FCC chair who has already promised to move forward with policies very different than those of the current administration (see our discussion here and here).  But while we are waiting for the big changes that may occur, there are many more mundane dates and issues to which broadcasters need to pay attention.  Let’s look at what is coming up in the next month.

Broadcasters need to remember that January 10 is the deadline for all full power and Class A TV stations, and full power AM and FM radio stations, both commercial and noncommercial, to upload to their Online Public Inspection Files their Quarterly Issues/Program lists for the fourth quarter of 2024.  The lists should identify the issues of importance to the station’s community and the programs that the station aired between October 1 and December 31, 2024, that addressed those issues.  These lists must be timely uploaded to your station’s OPIF, as the untimely uploads of these documents probably have resulted in more fines in the last decade than for any other FCC rule violation.  As you finalize your lists, do so 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 article here for more on the importance of the Quarterly Issues/Programs list obligation.

Continue Reading January 2025 Regulatory Updates for Broadcasters – Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, Children’s Television Programming Reporting, Expansion of Audio Description Requirements, Political Windows, and More

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • Congress failed to include the AM For Every Vehicle Act in their year-end omnibus spending legislation, meaning that the bill is dead for this Congress.  The legislation will have to be reintroduced in the new Congress that begins in January and must again go through committee consideration and other procedural steps before it could become law.  According to press reports, the NAB now intends to turn its focus to pushing for this legislation to be reintroduced and passed in 2025.
  •  The FCC’s Media Bureau granted the National Association of Broadcasters’ request for an retroactive extension of the waiver of the FCC’s audio crawl rule, extending the waiver through May 27, 2025 or until the FCC rules on the NAB’s separate request to pause the effect of the rule while the FCC considers the NAB’s proposal that broadcasters comply with the rule by providing “textual crawls that provide emergency information duplicative or equivalent to the information conveyed by the visual image” (see our discussion here).  The FCC’s audio crawl rule requires TV stations to provide an aural description transmitted on the station’s SAP channel of non-textual emergency information, such as maps or other graphic displays, conveyed outside of station newscasts.  For years, broadcasters have asked for extensions of the effective date of this rule as there is no technological way to reliably convert graphics to speech.  The Bureau granted the new extension because of the public safety issues that would arise if TV stations stopped airing visual images about emergencies because they could not comply with the rule’s requirements.  The Bureau also stated that TV stations would not be subject to any enforcement action for failing to comply with the rule during the brief period from November 26 until December 20 when it was in effect.
  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit announced that oral argument in the appeal of the FCC’s reinstatement of the FCC Form 395-B has been scheduled for February 4, 2025. In February 2024, the FCC reinstated the Form 395-B, which requires that broadcasters yearly prepare a report for a station’s online public file classifying all of its employees by race, gender, and employment position (see our Broadcast Law Blog article here about that decision).  As we discussed on the Blog here and here, the decision is being challenged by several broadcasters who argue that the report is unconstitutional because it unlawfully pressures broadcasters to engage in race- and sex-conscious employment practices.  FCC Chairman-designate Carr vigorously opposed the reinstatement of the Form and recently tweeted on X that the agency would deprioritize “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) efforts under his leadership (see our article here for more on the new Chair’s policy priorities), so it will be interesting to see how his FCC defends the February decision in Court.
  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with Paramount Global, which owns CBS, to resolve its investigation of whether CBS violated the FCC’s Emergency Alert Service rules by transmitting false EAS tones during three programs: the Young Sheldon episode broadcast on May 18, 2023; the Entertainment Tonight program broadcast on October 25, 2023; and the Top of the Hour broadcast on June 6, 2024.  To settle the matter, Paramount admitted that the Entertainment Tonight and Top of the Hour broadcasts violated the FCC’s EAS rules by including a few seconds of what sounded like an EAS tone, but not the Young Sheldon broadcast – for which Paramount only admitted to certain facts regarding the date and content of the broadcast, and that it was delivered to affiliate TV stations across the country.  The Consent Decree requires Paramount to pay a $244,952 civil penalty and enter into a compliance plan to ensure that future EAS violations do not occur.  As we have noted many times (see for instance our articles here and here), the FCC forbids the use of real or simulated EAS tones except in connection with real emergencies, and it issues heavy penalties to those that misuse those tones.
  • Petitions to deny, comments, and other pleadings were filed in response to the amended Paramount-Skydance Media transfer applications proposing that David Ellison acquire a controlling stake in the company, in addition to serving as its Chairman and CEO (see our reference to this acquisition in our weekly updates here and here).  The Center for American Rights requests that the FCC only grant the applications on the condition that the company rectify CBS’s purported political bias in their news programming, citing its own complaint alleging that CBS News manipulatively edited an interview with then-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.  CAR also expressed concerns regarding a minority investor in Ellison’s company with alleged close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.  CAR is the organization that filed complaints during the 2024 election cycle against ABC, CBS, and NBC raising allegations including news distortion, bias, and equal time violations.  Fuse Media asserts that the merger will exacerbate Paramount’s anticompetitive treatment of independent programmers – ultimately harming competition and viewpoint diversity.  Replies to these comments will be filed in early January. 
  • The Media Bureau entered into two Consent Decrees with broadcasters to resolve issues arising from their license renewal applications:
    • One Consent Decree, with a group of three Washington TV stations, resolved an investigation into the stations’ failure to timely upload several Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists to their Online Public Inspection Files, and their failure to disclose these violations in their license renewal applications.  The Consent Decree requires the stations to pay a $29,000 civil penalty and to enter into a compliance plan to ensure that future OPIF violations do not occur.  See our article here on the importance that the FCC has historically placed on the Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists.
    • The Bureau also entered into a Consent Decree with a group of four Utah TV translator stations for filing their license renewal applications over fourth months late.  The Consent Decree requires the translator licensee, for the entirety of their next license terms, to submit a certification every six months to the Bureau stating that they remain compliant with all FCC rules applicable to TV translator stations.
  • The Media Bureau and the FCC’s Managing Director issued an Order to Pay or Show Cause to a Texas AM station proposing to revoke the station’s license unless, within 60 days, the station pays its delinquent regulatory fees and interest, administrative costs, and penalties, or shows that the debts are not owed or should be waived or deferred.  The station has an unpaid regulatory fee debt totaling $27,492.48 for fiscal years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
  • The Media Bureau denied an objection filed against a new Wisconsin noncommercial educational FM station construction permit application claiming that the applicant failed to demonstrate that it was an established local applicant (meaning that the applicant was local and established in the community for at least two years before filing the application), and thus could not claim points in the FCC’s point system analysis used to evaluate mutually exclusive applications (applications that cannot all be granted consistent with the FCC’s technical rules) filed during the 2021 NCE Filing Window.  The Bureau found that the applicant showed that it was local by submitting a map demonstrating that its headquarters was within the required proximity to its proposed community of license, and it showed that it was established for at least two years because it was the licensee since 2016 of an LPFM station located in the proposed station’s service area.  The Bureau ordered the applicant and another mutually applicant to submit a proposed a time-sharing arrangement by January 25, 2025 to share their proposed channel.
  • The Media Bureau also took actions in two cases affecting new LPFM station applications filed in the 2023 LPFM filing window:
    • The Bureau affirmed its dismissal of a new Connecticut construction permit application for failing to comply with the LPFM minimum distance separation requirements.  The applicant requested waiver of the rule on the grounds that its contours protected other stations and that the minimum distance separation requirements should be changed as those rules did not serve the public interest.  The applicant also argued that the LPFM station would provide needed minority-oriented programming.  The Bureau affirmed its dismissal of the application and denied the waiver request because it was really a challenge to the rule itself, which cannot be resolved in the consideration of an individual application, and the applicant failed to show any special circumstance justifying a waiver.
    • The Bureau dismissed a construction permit application for a new LPFM station at Jackson, Mississippi, for violating the FCC’s application signature rules.  The Bureau found that the individual who signed the application was unable to so because he was not an officer or director of the applicant.  Due to the application’s dismissal, the Bureau granted the mutually exclusive application for a new LPFM station at Clinton, Mississippi.

With the upcoming holidays, we do not plan to publish this weekly update next week.  Watch for our next summary of regulatory actions relevant to broadcasters on January 3, 2025.  We will write about any significant regulatory actions on our Broadcast Law Blog in the interim.  Also watch our Blog in the coming weeks for a look ahead at January regulatory dates for broadcasters and for and for our calendar of regulatory deadlines for all of 2025.