Each year, at about this time, we pull out the crystal ball and make predictions of the issues affecting broadcasters that will likely bubble up to the top of the FCC’s agenda in the coming year.  While we try each year to throw in a mention of the issues that come to our mind, there are always surprises, and new issues that we did not anticipate. Sometimes policy decisions will come from individual cases, and sometimes they will be driven by a particular FCC Commissioner who finds a specific issue that is of specific interest to him or her.  But here is our try at listing at least some of the issues that broadcasters should expect from Washington in the coming year.  With so many issues on the table, we’ll divide the issues into two parts – talking about FCC issues today, and issues from Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the maze of government agencies and courts who deal with broadcast issues.  In addition, watch these pages for our calendar of regulatory deadlines for broadcasters in the next few days.

So here are some issues that are on the table at the FCC – starting first with issues affecting all stations, then on to TV and radio issues in separate sections below. 

General Broadcast Issues

There are numerous issues before the FCC that affect both radio and television broadcasters, some of which have been pending for many years and are ripe for resolution, while others are raised in proceedings that are just beginning. These include:

Multiple Ownership Rules Review: In April, the FCC finally addressed its long outstanding Quadrennial Review of the broadcast multiple ownership rules – essentially by punting most of them into the next Quadrennial Review, which probably won’t be resolved until 2016.  Issues deferred include any revisions to the local ownership limits for radio or TV (such as loosening the ownership caps for TV stations in smaller markets, which the FCC tentatively suggested that they would not do), any revision to the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule (which the FCC tentatively suggested that they would consider – perhaps so that this rule can be changed before the newspaper becomes extinct), and questions about the attribution of TV Shared Services Agreements (which the FCC is already scrutinizing under an Interim Policy adopted by the Media Bureau). Continue Reading What Washington Has in Store for Broadcasters in 2015 – Part 1, What’s Up at the FCC

A new year, and a new set of regulatory obligations and deadlines for broadcasters and others.  To help track many of the important deadlines for broadcasters in the new year, we have put together a Broadcaster’s Calendar of important regulatory dates for 2015, available here, which highlights many of the dates for the regulatory obligations of broadcasters in 2015.  While not exhaustive, and subject to change, the calendar sets out the regular regulatory dates for broadcasters (e.g. Quarterly Issues Programs lists, Children’s Television Reports, EEO public inspection file reports, reg fee obligations, etc.).  It also highlights dates that don’t necessarily occur every year – like this year’s obligation for commercial broadcasters to file Biennial Ownership Reports.  While the license renewal cycle for TV concludes this year, Mid-Term EEO report obligations (FCC Form 397) for radio stations in the states that were the first to file their renewals in the last radio license renewal cycle (those in the DC area and in the southeast) kick in mid-year for radio employment units with more than 10 full-time employees.  The calendar also lists January dates for webcasters to file various elections (including elections to be treated as a “small broadcaster” which, for broadcasters who stream their stations online but have a very small audience, can lessen payment and reporting obligations).  There are even a few lowest unit rate windows listed for states that have announced state and local elections (and are many other states holding such elections that we were not able to determine dates – so check those locally.

Some of the important January regulatory dates include the obligation of all broadcasters, by the 10th of the month, to have their Quarterly Issues Programs lists in their public file.  TV stations should also place their certifications as to compliance with children’s television commercial limits in their files by that date.  By the 12th (as the 10th is a weekend day), television stations must also submit to the FCC their Form 398 Children’s Television Programming Reports that report on educational and informational programming directed to children.  Continue Reading A Broadcaster’s Regulatory Calendar for 2015, Plus Important Regulatory Deadlines for January Including Incentive Auction and Captioning Comments

Right before Christmas, the FCC’s Media Bureau released a Public Notice announcing that they have reviewed the final set of mutually exclusive LPFM applications.  “Mutually exclusive applications” are applications for stations in the same geographic area which cannot all be granted without creating interference issues. The notice identifies tentative winners selected by the “point system” that the FCC uses to decide between mutually exclusive applicants (or applicants headed for shared time arrangements where they remained tied after the FCC’s “point system” analysis).  The Public Notice lists 96 mutually exclusive groups of LPFM applicants in the Southeast and South Central states.  We wrote in July about a group of Western applications that had already been considered by the FCC, and in September about another group of LPFM applications in the Northeast and North Central states.  So this current notice should be the final major list of LPFM applications that need to be processed by the FCC.  The issuance of this notice gives broadcasters and other interested parties 30 days to file any objections to these proposed new stations.  In addition, applicants can raise issues against each other.  Objections are due on January 22. 

The notice also sets a 90 day window for LPFM applicants whose applications are listed in this notice to file applications to make changes in their applications – including major changes to new frequencies or different transmitter sites.  Applicants who were not the tentative winners in the FCC’s consideration of the mutually exclusive groups have another shot to get FCC permission to construct a new LPFM station, if they can find an open frequency in the next 90 days.  Those amendments are due by March 23, but are often filed earlier as they are treated by the FCC on a first come, first served basis.  Broadcasters need to watch these amendments, as they could pose interference issues for full-power FM stations on channels not previously proposed for use by any LPFM applicant.  Continue Reading FCC Issues Public Notice on Mutually Exclusive LPFM Applications in the Southeast US – Deadlines for Petitions to Deny and Amendments to Applications

A decision by the US Court of Appeals on the appeal of the Copyright Royalty Board decision as to the Sirius XM and Music Choice royalties for the public performance of sound recordings is one of the many year-end decisions important to broadcasters and digital media companies that seems to be flooding out from Courts and agencies in DC and elsewhere. The Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of SoundExchange, which was arguing that the royalties for both services should have been set higher by the CRB, and the Court also rejected the appeal of Music Choice, which argued that the royalties that were set by the CRB should have been lower.  We wrote about the CRB’s decision, here, when it was initially released about 2 years ago.

The proceeding involved the Preexisting Subscription Services (“PSS”) and the Preexisting Satellite Digital Audio Services (“SDARS”), services that were singled out when Congress adopted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998 by applying a different standard to those services for use by the CRB in determining the amount of sound recording performance royalties.  Instead of using the “willing buyer, willing seller” standard that applies to webcasters and any other digital music service that was not in existence in 1998, these services are evaluated under the 801(b) standard of the Copyright Act, which looks at a variety of factors including the market rate expressed by the willing buyer willing seller standard, but also at the relative financial contributions of the parties to bringing the music to the public, and the effect of royalty changes on the stability of the industries involved (see our articles here, here and here about the differences between these standards)  Using this 801(b) standard, most observers believe that royalties have been set at rates lower than have prevailed in the cases involving services subject the willing buyer willing seller standard. Continue Reading Court of Appeals Upholds Copyright Royalty Board Decision on Sirius XM and Music Choice Royalties

Two fines for EEO violations released Friday were among the rush of actions coming from the FCC last week as it tries to finish its work of 2014.  Incentive auction procedures, MVPD redefinition, online public file issues, approvals of long-pending TV company mergers and so many other actions were taken in the last week that we can’t keep up.  Now, we can add EEO violations to the list of year-end actions, as the FCC’s Media Bureau on Friday released two Notices of Apparent Liability to radio stations operators for violating the EEO rules, proposing fines of $5000 and $9000.  While, in both cases, the stations are principally faulted for their failure to engage in wide dissemination of job openings, one case cites a new issue as the issue partially underlying the EEO fine – the failure to actually provide notice of job openings to all of the recruitment sources that had requested that the station notify them when there are job vacancies. Both cases arose from station license renewal applications filed about more than 3 years ago.

Each EEO employment unit (stations under common control, serving the same geographic area and sharing a common employee) with 5 or more full-time employees must engage in the three prongs of the FCC’s EEO outreach requirements.  First, they must engage in wide dissemination of information about job openings, using a variety of recruitment sources to ensure that information about job openings at a station reach all of the diverse groups of people that may be represented within the station’s recruitment area.  Secondly, they must let groups within the community know that they can ask to be notified of job openings at the station when such openings arise (and in fact provide such notice when the openings do arise).  Finally, they must engage “non-vacancy specific outreach efforts” – activities to educate the community about broadcast employment – what people do in broadcast jobs, how they can find out about the jobs, and what sort of training or experience is necessary for jobs in the industry.  It was violations of these first two prongs of the FCC’s EEO program that got the stations in trouble in these two recent orders. Continue Reading Fines of $9000 and $5000 Imposed on Radio Stations for Insufficient EEO Outreach Efforts – Reminder to Review Your Program as EEO Mid-Term Report Cycle Begins in 2015

We recently wrote about the proposed changes in the FCC’s rules about station-conducted contests, here.  The FCC has proposed that much of the required disclosure about the material terms of these contests be allowed to be conducted online, rather than having to be announced on-air often enough so that listeners to the station are likely to have heard such announcements.  The NPRM has now been published in the Federal Register, which sets the dates for public comment.  Comments are due February 17, 2015, and reply comments are due March 19, 2015.  Be ready to file your comments in this proceeding by the deadlines to make your life as a broadcaster at least somewhat easier. 

The online public inspection file for radio is moving closer to reality at an unusually fast pace.  Yesterday, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, seeking to expand the online public file requirements that now apply to broadcast TV stations to radio (see our summary of the obligations here, and a presentation that we did on those requirements, here).  The rulemaking proposal also looks to adopt online public file obligations for cable systems, satellite television systems, and Sirius XM.  Comments will be due 30 days after the NPRM is published in the Federal Register. 

The NPRM proposes a phased-in approach to these obligations for radio.  It would first require the online public files only for stations in the top 50 Nielsen (formerly Arbitron) markets which employ five or more full-time employees.  The Commission chose these stations to begin the process, reasoning that they are subject to the EEO rules and would thus have EEO reporting obligations (which are already online for most station, albeit on their own station websites), and would have more resources to meet any obligation that the rule imposes.  The Top 50 markets were also the starting point for the roll out of these obligations for TV stations, and are likely also in areas where there is significant political broadcasting activity.  The NPRM asks whether a six month period to implement the new requirements from the effective date of any set of new rules would be appropriate. Continue Reading Online Public File for Radio – and Satellite and Cable – Moves Closer to Reality – FCC Issues Formal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking

An FCC Regional Director of its Enforcement Bureau this week issued a Forfeiture Order fining a New Mexico broadcaster $25,000 as three of his Studio Transmitter Link auxiliary stations were operating from an unauthorized location – each located about half a mile from where they were supposed to be according to their FCC licenses.  While the amount of the fine may have been increased as the licensee, when notified of the problem following an FCC inspection, filed an application to correct the coordinates, but that application was dismissed by the FCC and never re-filed – so that the same issues of unauthorized operation remained in place when the FCC re-inspected the stations a year later.  But the amount of the fines for a seemingly small problem evidences the seriousness with which the FCC is treating inaccuracies in broadcast auxiliary station licenses.

We have written about these issues before, here and here, and in another recent case the FCC proposed to fine a TV licensee $84,000 for a similar violation.  So check your auxiliaries now, and make sure that they are properly licensed to avoid the potential of a big fine from the FCC in the future. 

The FCC this week issued a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, suggesting that certain responsibilities for the captioning of video programming be reassigned from the Video Programming Distributor (the TV station or cable system) who has the direct contact with the viewer, to the producer of the programming as that is where the captioning usually is added to the programming.  In asking questions about whether to look at reassignment of some or all of the legal obligations for captioning, the FCC also suggested that, were it to take such an action, program producers might need to register with the FCC so that complaints about their captioning could be directed to the proper location.  As the new quality captioning system is driven by consumer complaints, the FCC suggests that, if programmers are not registered with the FCC, consumers will not be able to express their concerns about the quality of captioning.  By asking about a possible reallocation of captioning responsibilities, and with captioning quality regulations about to go into effect in January, it appears as if the deadline for meeting the new rules seeking to insure the quality of captioning of video programming will be postponed – and we are now hearing that March 16 is the likely new date for the new captioning quality obligations to take effect. 

The new captioning quality obligations were to take effect on January 15 (or a later date if the requirements had not been approved under the Paperwork Reduction Act by that date).  They required that broadcasters insure that program captioning was of good quality, looking at quality goals including the following:

  • Accurate: Captions must match the spoken words in the dialogue and convey background noises, music and other sounds to the fullest extent possible.
  • Synchronous: Captions must coincide with their corresponding spoken words and sounds to the greatest extent possible and must be displayed on the screen at a speed that can be read by viewers.
  • Complete: Captions must run from the beginning to the end of the program to the fullest extent possible.
  • Properly placed: Captions should not block other important visual content on the screen, overlap one another or run off the edge of the video screen.

According to this week’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, many VPDs suggested after these quality rules were adopted in February, that it was really the program producers who insured that the captions were included in the programming, and they should be responsible for the quality of those captions.  In reaction to those comments, the FCC has now issued this further notice.  Watch for the comment date on this Further Notice (which will be set when the document is published in the Federal Register) at which time we understand that it is likely that a formal extension of the effective dates of the captioning quality rules will be issued.  So keep watching for these announcements.

The FCC issued a Forfeiture Order this week, fining a station $7000 for violations of the main studio rule. The facts of the case were set out in a Notice of Apparent Liability issued back in February, where the licensee had claimed that its studio was in a location that was shared with another broadcaster who had agreed to lease it space.  The supposed landlord, however, said that the lease agreement had expired and the licensee had no employees or equipment at the location of the studio. While the initial proposed fine was to be $17,500 for both the failure to have a main studio and to have a public file, the Forfeiture Order reduced the fine as the landlord acknowledged that the public file was at the studio location, even if there were no licensee employees there.  The decision reiterates what the FCC is seeking when it looks to determine if a licensee is in compliance with the main studio rules.

The decision recites the Commission’s policy for a main studio, stating: 

The Commission has interpreted Section 73.1125 to require broadcast licensees to “equip the main studio with production and transmission facilities that meet applicable standards, maintain continuous program transmission capability, and maintain a meaningful management and staff presence.” Specifically, the Commission has found that a main studio “must, at a minimum, maintain full-time managerial and full-time staff personnel.”

It goes on to set out that, in situations where studios are shared by different licensees, it is looking for evidence (like a written contract) that the landlord’s equipment is actually available for use by the licensee sharing the facilities.  We have written about the main studio obligations before, here.  To stay compliant, make sure that a station’s main studio is staffed during normal business hours, has at least two employees (one of whom is a management employee) who report there on a daily basis as their principal place of business, and has equipment ready and available so that the licensee’s employees can originate operations from the main studio at any time.  This licensee’s fine is a good reminder to all other broadcasters to observe these requirements.