This past week, former Senator Fred Thompson created a committee to explore a run for the Presidency.  In every article written about the former Senator, like one recently run in the Washington Post, mention is made of his current broadcasting career – his role on Law and Order and as a guest host on Paul Harvey’s radio program.  And all the articles assume that the campaign will result in the termination of these roles, and also present issues about the broadcast and cablecast of reruns of Law and Order episodes and old movies in which he appeared.  In some cases, that is true.  In others, it remains to be seen.  But the potential candidacy does offer a good opportunity for a review of the equal time obligations of broadcasters under FCC rules.

"Equal time" or "equal opportunities" require that broadcast stations give treat candidates for the same political race in an even-handed fashion.  If they sell time to one candidate, they have to give the other candidate equal opportunities to buy the same amount of time in programs reaching roughly the same size audience.  If time is provided to a candidate without charge, and the candidate’s on-air appearance is outside of a news or news interview programs and is not part of on-the-spot coverage of a news event, then the broadcaster must make equal time available to the opposing candidate, if that candidate requests it within 7 days of the use by the first candidate.

However, none of these obligations arise until a candidate is legally qualified – essentially when he or she has filed the necessary papers to obtain a place on the ballot in accordance with the governing law of the jurisdiction in which the election will be held.  In Thompson’s case, as he has not even officially announced that he is running, he is not yet a legally qualified candidate, so for the time being, there is no issue with the continued airing of the programs in which he appears. 

Continue Reading Law and Order: Equal Opportunites – The FCC Implications of Fred Thompson’s Possible Presidential Bid

Yesterday’s New York Times featured an article on its Opinion/Editorial page written by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, suggesting that enforcement of the public interest obligations of broadcaster become more stringent. Commissioner Copps suggested that broadcasters needed to have their responsiveness to the needs of their community scrutinized more closely, and more often. Among other actions, the Commissioner suggested that license renewal period for broadcasters be shortened from the current eight year term, to once every three years – as well as a host of more stringent and specific programming obligations. Coming on the heels of the FCC’s proposal in the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Digital Radio (see our summary, here) to explore the local service of broadcasters through a checklist public file report quantifying their public interest service, as well as mandating more local program origination and a greater local presence for stations, local service seems to have emerged as a major issue of concern that may be played out in FCC proceedings in this year leading up to the 2008 Presidential election.

The Copps proposal to shorten license renewal terms back to the three years, and to stiffen the renewal process, asks that the FCC return to a system that required broadcasters to spend significant sums of money on administrative matters that could have better gone to broadcast operations. And the sums that used to be spent on license renewal applications had minimal real impact on the public interest.   While from time to time, broadcasters did run into scrutiny at renewal time, the vast majority of broadcasters’ applications were reviewed in a perfunctory manner and renewed – just as they are today. And with the Commission’s depleted resources that are already stretched thin, it seems unlikely that its staff would be able to provide much greater scrutiny to renewal applications that are filed more than twice as often as they are currently – more than doubling the workload of the already overburdened Commission staff.

Continue Reading You Can Force A Broadcaster to Program, But You Can’t Make People Watch: Proposals for More License Renewal Obligations

It’s been almost a year since President Bush signed legislation raising the fines for broadcast indecency to $325,000 per occurrence.  Even though the legislation was effective on June 15, 2006, the higher fines have not yet gone into effect as the FCC had never adopted rules to officially implement them – until today.  Today, the FCC issued an order adopting a rule to implement the statutory mandate – and the new higher fines will go into effect 30 days after this order is published in the Federal Register, which will presumably be quite soon.

There was no explanation for the Commission’s delay in adopting the new rule.  As the change was mandated by statute, the adoption of the new rule did not require public notice and comment.  All the Commission needed to do was to put out the Order that was released today.  Perhaps the Commission was concerned about the pending Court cases to resolve whether their enforcement of the rules is constitutional (see our comment here).  In fact, in opposing the expedited consideration of one of the appeals of a Commission indecency fine, the Commission specifically made the point that there was no need to for prompt consideration as the chilling effect of the Commission policies was limited as the new fines had not yet gone in to effect.  But, for whatever reason, the Commission has finally decided to act, and the new fines will soon be effective.  Now we just need to watch for the Court decisions to see if the enforcement of those fines will be permitted.

This article is no longer available. For more information on this topic, see  FCC Deadlines in January – Quarterly Issues Programs Lists, Children’s Program Reports, Comments on TV Online Public File and Public Interest Obligation Proposals, FM Window and More

The FCC today issued the long-awaited text of its decision on Digital Audio radio – the so-called IBOC system.  As we have written, while adopted at its March meeting, the text of the decision has been missing in action.  With the release of the decision, which is available here, the effective date of the new rules can be set in the near future – 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.  With the Order, the Commission also released its Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, addressing a host of new issues – some not confined to digital radio, but instead affecting the obligations of all radio operations.

The text provides the details for many of the actions that were announced at the March meeting, including authorizing the operation of AM stations in a digital mode at night, and the elimination of the requirements that stations ask permission for experimental operations before commencing multicast operations.  The Order also permits the use of dual antennas – one to be used solely for digital use – upon notification to the FCC.  In addition, the order addresses several other matters not discussed at the meeting, as set forth below. 

Continue Reading FCC Issues Rules on Digital Radio – With Some Surprises that Could Eventually Impact Analog Operations

This article is no longer available. For more information on this topic, see FCC Deadlines in January – Quarterly Issues Programs Lists, Children’s Program Reports, Comments on TV Online Public File and Public Interest Obligation Proposals, FM Window and More

We recently wrote about the FCC’s proceeding to assess the status of stations that are primarily home shopping in nature – to determine if such stations are serving the public interest and are entitled to must carry status on cable systems.  The FCC has just issued an Order extending the comment deadline in that proceeding.  Comments are now due on July 18, with replies to be submitted on August 2.  With a proceeding with its roots reaching back to 1993 – a few more days to decide the issues involved probably don’t make much of a difference! 

We wrote last month about the fact that the Copyright Office has initiated a major proceeding to reexamine the statutory licenses that allow cable systems and satellite distributors to retransmit the programming of local television stations.  A statutory license allows retransmission of television signals by these multichannel video providers without getting the consent of copyright owners of each and every program (and program elements contained in the programming, e.g. music) that a broadcast station may feature in its programming. As part of this proceeding, the Copyright Office promised to hold public hearings on these licenses. The Office has announced the schedule for these hearings, to be held from July 23  to July 26. Parties interested in participating in the hearings need to register their interest on or before June 15. The Copyright Office’s notice about the hearing, which contains instructions on the process for filing a request to testify, can be found here.

Written comments in this important proceeding are due July 2. The Copyright Office has also encouraged interested parties to file suggested questions to be posed to the participants in the hearing by July 2.  Reply comments in the case are due on September 13.  The Copyright Office has also encouraged parties to respond to the testimony presented at the hearing in their reply comments. 

Continue Reading Copyright Office to Hold Hearings on Video Statutory Licenses

The Advanced Television Systems Committee, the technical organization that has guided the technical development of Digital Television in the United States, this week requested proposals for the development of handsets and a delivery system that would allow television broadcasters to deliver their content directly to mobile receivers. This proposal would remedy one of the shortcomings of the current television digital transmission system – that fact that it has been designed for in-home reception. Outlines of the proposal are due on June 21, with detailed technical specifications to be submitted on July 6. A copy of the full Request for Proposal can be found on the ATSC web site, here.

In 2000, while the current 8VSB standard was just beginning to be implemented in the United States, a number of television companies, spearheaded by Sinclair Broadcasting, suggested that the proposed system was not sufficiently robust for mobile applications and otherwise suffered from reception issues.  These groups suggested that a COFDM transmission system similar to that used in Europe be substituted for the US system.  At that time, it was concluded that the digital transition was already too far along to try to change systems, and that the principal use of digital television was for in-home viewing so that the mobile reception benefits, if they could in fact be offered by the COFDM system, did not justify the change in transmission systems.

Continue Reading New Handsets Sought for Mobile Delivery of Digital Television