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.

  • July 18, 2022 was the reply comment deadline for the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the its proposed regulatory fees for fiscal year 2022. The NAB Reply argued that broadcasters are proposed to pay too much, and contends that certain FCC operational costs have been misallocated to broadcasters for regulatory activities that do not involve them (the reg fees are allocated to reimburse the FCC for the costs of regulating each industry that the FCC oversees).  The NAB recognized that, as the fees need to be set soon so that they can be paid before the October 1 start of the next fiscal year, the FCC may not be able to broaden the base of payors to include currently unlicensed entities that benefit from FCC regulation, fees on broadcasters should be limited to an increase of no more than 5% rather than the 13% increase proposed for radio.  The FCC budget, which the fees are to reimburse, only increased by 2.1%.  As might be expected, representatives of other segments of the communications industry argued that their portion of the fees should not be increased.  Expect an FCC decision setting the final amounts for the fees in late August or very early September.
  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) to an FM station in Georgia for operating an FM booster without FCC authorization – and without even applying for one. The NOV directs the station to file within 20 days a written explanation of its violations and what it has done to cure the problem.  The NOV cautions that the Enforcement Bureau could take further action against the station in the future, including assessment of a fine.  The Bureau also issued a similar NOV to an FM station in Florida for operating from a location not authorized by its Special Temporary Authority (STA), using an antenna not authorized by the STA. Remember, if you plan to change the transmission facilities with which your station operates, in the vast majority of cases, you will need the FCC’s prior approval to do so.
  • The FCC’s Audio Division issued a short-term renewal of one year (as opposed to a full term of eight years) to a group of Texas FM stations, each of which was alleged to have been silent for 25% of its license term and over 40% of the period covered by the renewal application plus the time that the renewal was under consideration. This again reminds broadcasters of the seriousness with which the Audio Division is treating stations that have been silent for extended periods.  See the July 19 entry on our Broadcast Law Blog for further discussion of the FCC’s developing practices in dealing with stations that are not continuously operating.
  • The FCC continues to aggressively police pirate radio stations, issuing five notices of illegal operation on July 18. In each case, the FCC warned the alleged violator that it could be subject to a fine of up to $2.1 million if such illegal operations continued.  These notices were again directed at the owners of the properties from which the pirates were operating.  See a sample notice here.
  • The FCC’s Audio Division rejected a request for the grant of an application from last year’s window for new Noncommercial Educational (NCE) reserved-band FM stations. The applicant requesting the grant was not preferred in a May decision awarding a construction permit to another mutually exclusive (MX) applicant based on its proposed superior technical coverage. After that decision, the applicant in this case amended its application and contended that, as the amendment removed any conflict with the winning applicant, its application should also be granted.  The FCC rejected that contention, as its rules only allow grant of one application out of any group of MX NCE applicants.  In its rulemaking setting the rules for deciding between MX NCE applications, it specifically rejected a proposal to allow “secondary grants” from within any MX group, fearing that allowing such grants would be administratively difficult and might result in the grant of technically inferior applications.  Without compelling reasons, which the Division did not see in this case, this policy will not be waived.
  • A new Chief Judge was appointed to the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The CRB sets certain music royalties and allocates certain fees collected by the Copyright Office.   For instance, the CRB sets the fees radio broadcasters pay to SoundExchange for streaming their signals on the Internet.  It also decides on the distribution of the distant signal royalties paid by cable and satellite for importing non-local television stations and the fees paid to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and GMR by noncommercial broadcasters.  We wrote on our blog about the many other proceedings relevant to media companies in which the CRB is involved.

A new Chief Copyright Royalty Judge of the Copyright Royalty Board has just been named by the Librarian of Congress.  According to the Press Release announcing his appointment, David Shaw will fill that position after having previously served as an administrative law judge on the International Trade Commission for over 10 years.  There, he heard complex cases dealing with detailed financial matters – experience that sounds relevant to the kinds of cases he will be deciding on the CRB.  The Copyright Royalty Judges decide cases determining the marketplace value of music when  setting royalty rates, and that look at the relative value of programming when deciding the distribution of cable royalties to program copyright holders.  In addition to ITC experience, Shaw was a judge at the Social Security Administration and, according to his biography, worked in the General Counsel’s office at NPR early in his career.  With the appointment of this new Chief Judge, we thought that it would be worth looking at some of the specific areas in which the CRB makes decisions that affect media companies.

The CRB is principally charged with rates and distributions for copyrights governed by a “statutory licenses.”  A statutory license is created by Congress when it is believed that individual negotiations between copyright holders and copyright users would either be unduly complex so as to be almost unworkable or where an efficient market would not otherwise exist.  Essentially, the statutory license means that the copyright owner must license the work that they own – they cannot restrict its use – if the user pays the royalties set by law or established by the CRB and abides by the conditions for use set out in the law.  See our article here about music statutory licenses and our articles here and here on some of the issues with the TV statutory licenses.  The conditions of use are often carefully restricted so as to only cover very specific uses under the statutory license (see our article here on the conditions placed on the use of music under the statutory license for webcasting – the public performance right for sound recordings used by noninteractive services discussed below).

Continue Reading New Copyright Royalty Board Chief Judge Named – Looking at the Issues Considered by the CRB of Importance to Media Companies

The FCC’s Audio Division, in the latter part of the license renewal cycle for radio stations, seems to have adopted a more aggressive position on stations that were silent for extended periods of time during their license term.  In our summary of last week’s events of importance to broadcasters, we noted one case where an Oklahoma AM station was granted a license renewal for a one-year term, instead of the normal eight years, because the station had been silent for 50% of its license term.  Yesterday, another decision was issued granting the license renewals of 7 Texas stations for only one year because these stations had been silent for 25% of their license term (as well as a significant period of time after the license renewal applications were filed).  These and other decisions in recent months show that the FCC is cracking down on stations that are silent for extended periods of time, even if those periods of silence had been authorized by the FCC pursuant to a request for special temporary authority to remain silent.

In each of these decisions, the FCC notes that silent stations cannot be serving the public interest.  When they are silent, they are not providing information to local residents, nor are they relaying EAS alerts.  As the stations are falling short on their obligation to serve the public by extended periods of silence (even if those periods of silence are authorized), the FCC has been issuing these short-term renewals to be able to monitor the performance of these stations to assure that they are continuing to operate during the next year – rather than having to wait until the end of a normal 8-year term to decide if the station has been serving the public. Continue Reading FCC Cracking Down on Long Periods of Station Silence – Short-Term Renewals for Radio Stations Silent More than 25% of License Term

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 US Court of Appeals this week determined that the FCC’s requirement that broadcasters confirm by searching DOJ and FCC databases that all buyers of program time on their stations are not representatives of foreign governments was beyond the power of the FCC as authorized by Congress. The Court decision will become effective if no appeals are filed.  The ruling does not change the obligation of broadcasters to have all buyers of program time certify in writing that they are not foreign governments, agents of foreign governments, or funded by foreign governments, and that no one in the production chain for any paid programming is a foreign government or its representative (or, if there are foreign governments behind the programming supplied to the station, the station must make appropriate on-air and public file disclosures).  Instead, the decision will simply remove the requirement that broadcasters verify the programmer’s certifications by reviewing the DOJ’s Foreign Agent Registration Act database and an FCC database listing foreign government funded video programmers.  For more on this decision, see the article in our Broadcast Law Blog, here.
  • This week, the FCC unanimously adopted an Order and Sixth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (on which we previously reported) to delete or revise analog rules for LPTV and television translator stations that no longer have any practical effect or that are otherwise obsolete or irrelevant after the transition of these stations to digital operation. Comments and reply comments on the Sixth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be due 30 and 45 days, respectively from publication of the document in the Federal Register
  • At its July 14 Open Meeting, the FCC unanimously adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (also previously reported) seeking comment on whether to update its rules to identify a new Nielsen publication for determining a television station’s designated market area (“DMA”) for satellite and cable carriage purposes. Nielsen has notified the FCC that it will no longer publish its Station Index Directory, which has historically been used in combination with the Nielsen Station Index and United States Television Household Estimates to determine a station’s DMA for carriage purposes.  In his separate statement on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Commissioner Simington, citing Nielsen’s current unaccredited status, expressed concerns about the FCC’s reliance on Nielsen data and Nielsen’s inclusion in nearly two dozen FCC rules, and called on the FCC to open a notice of inquiry on this topic.  Comments and reply comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will be due 30 and 60 days, respectively, from the date the document is published in the Federal Register.
  • Forty-nine state broadcaster associations, “represent[ing] nearly the entire universe of radio stations in every state and territory in the United States,” this week submitted a joint letter to the FCC to voice their “strong opposition” to GeoBroadcast Solutions’ (GBS) proposal that would permit GBS to deploy its proprietary ZoneCasting technology in the marketplace. Among other things, the associations state that “GBS’s approach would only undermine, rather than serve, listeners and local broadcasters, raising serious concerns about this new technology’s effect on local radio’s important public safety function and ability to provide the free, local news, information, and entertainment on which Americans rely.” The associations also highlighted the potential impact of ZoneCasting on public safety, listeners and the economics of the radio industry.
  • The FCC’s Audio Division of the Media Bureau released an Order adopting a consent decree with an Oklahoma AM station, in which the station was granted a short-term renewal of one year instead of a full term renewal for eight years.  The Bureau found that the station had been silent for four periods during its license term (including the period when its renewal application was pending), three of which were almost 12 months in length.  The Bureau was not persuaded to grant a full-term renewal by the fact that the station had sought FCC authorization for its periods of silence.  The station also disclosed that it had failed to comply with the FCC’s online public inspection file requirements.  In addition to the short-term renewal, the consent decree requires the station to implement a compliance plan to ensure future compliance with the online public inspection file requirements.  For another consent decree issued to resolve online public inspection file violations (but without issuing a short-term renewal, go here).
  • The FCC’ Video Division issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order and Notice Of Apparent Liability For Forfeiture proposing a $6500 fine on an LPTV station that had completed construction of its digital facilities in 2017 but did not file a license to cover that construction permit until late 2021 after the station’s digital construction permit expired and the FCC issued a notice cancelling the station license for not having met the July 2021 deadline for the commencement of LPTV digital operations. As the licensee was able to prove the prior construction of the station, the FCC reinstated the license but proposed the fine for late filing of the license application and operating without authority for the periods of its digital operation before the license application was filed.  This decision serves as a reminder that broadcasters who construct new facilities pursuant to a construction permit must file a license application upon the completion of construction notifying the FCC of the actual facilities constructed and verifying that the construction was accomplished according to the requirements of the permit.
  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Violation to an LPFM station in Florida for failure to allow FCC representatives to inspect the station. In this case, FCC agents from a Field Office were not allowed by employees of the station to inspect its operation, and the owner of the station allegedly, after being called, also refused to permit the inspection.  As noted in the Notice of Violation, the FCC rules require that all stations be available for inspection by FCC agents during all hours of operation.
  • This week, we published on our Broadcast Law Blog an article about two new performing rights organizations that are seeking royalties for the public performance of comedy recordings. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and GMR do not typically cover the performance of the “literary work” underlying a recorded comedy routine, so these new PROs are seeking royalties for these performances.  Also on the Broadcast Law Blog was an article reminding stations that they need to register in the new CORES2 FCC database, and to use the FCC’s LMS database for all call sign change requests (or requests for call signs for new stations) as the independent call sign database is no longer in use.

And a reminder for next week, July 18, 2022 is the reply comment deadline for the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the FCC’s proposed regulatory fees for fiscal year 2022.  In initial comments, the NAB argued that the FCC’s methodology for imposing the fees on broadcasters was inexplicable as it raised fees on broadcasters by 13% while the FCC budget which the fees are to reimburse only increased by 2.1%.   The state broadcast associations jointly filed comments expressing many of the same concerns.  The fees that the FCC is proposing for television and radio stations are set forth in Appendix C and Appendix G of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

When providing briefings on FCC issues at a number of broadcast conventions in the past few months, I find that broadcasters are most often surprised by the relatively new FCC rule that requires that they verify that any buyer of programming time on their station is not an agent of a foreign government.  This week, the burden that this rule (about which we wrote here) imposed on broadcasters was eased, when a Court overturned one aspect of the obligations imposed by the FCC.

The FCC rule, Section73.1212(j), is designed to ensure that all broadcast programming that is paid for or sponsored by a foreign government or one of its agents is specifically identified on the air as having foreign government backing.  The FCC required specific wording for on-air identifications for this programming paid for or produced by foreign governments or those that they finance.  In addition, broadcast stations are required to get assurances in writing from all parties who pay for programming on their stations that the programmer is not a foreign government or an agent of any such government.  The FCC rule went further, requiring that each station verify by checking FCC and DOJ databases that any programmer who certified that they were not a foreign government agent was in fact not a government agent.  It was that last requirement – the requirement to check DOJ and FCC databases – that the Court rejected this week. Continue Reading Court Overturns Part of FCC Requirement that Broadcasters Confirm that Programmers are Not Foreign Government Agents

The FCC in recent years has been upgrading their technical systems (even though, as many broadcasters and their attorneys know, the upgrades are often not without their own problems).  The old CDBS database, in which broadcasters for years filed their applications, is shut down for all new filings as almost all broadcast applications have migrated to the new Licensing and Management System (“LMS”) database system.  Another transition date is almost upon broadcasters as the FCC announced months ago that it will be decommissioning its legacy Commission Registration System (“CORES”) at 6 pm EST on July 15.  We’ve written about that deadline in several weekly updates and in our post looking ahead at July regulatory dates for broadcasters.  But with the date almost upon us, it is important to remind broadcasters to register in the new system by the July 15 deadline. By that deadline, each person associated with your licensee’s FCC Registration Number (“FRN”), including those who prepare or submit your FCC filings or submit your annual FCC regulatory fees, should register in its new CORES2 database by setting up an account and then associating their account with the relevant FRN.  Once legacy CORES is retired, you will only be able to access FCC filing and payment systems using a CORES2 user account. See the FCC webpage with information about the transition here.

The new CORES2 system contains the same FRN information as the legacy system (found here ). The change to CORES2 will impact how individuals, licensees and other entities doing business before the FCC obtain and manage their FRNs, and will also affect access to various FCC databases, including the LMS used for preparing and filing routine FCC applications and reports.   To maintain access to the information in CORES, all licensees need to register in the new system.  Tutorial videos on navigating CORES2 can found here. Continue Reading FCC Database Transitions – Are You Ready for the New CORES on July 15? Did You Know Call Sign Reservation Has Moved?

In recent months, lawsuits have been filed against streaming audio service Pandora by comedian Lewis Black, the estate of Robin Williams, and representatives of other comedians seeking public performance royalties for the underlying comedic work – not the recording of the comedy bit for which a royalty is already paid, but instead for the script of that comedic performance.  Reportedly, Spotify has pulled comedy recordings from its service to avoid such threats.  What is the issue here?  The claim in the lawsuits is that the authors of the script of any comedy bit have the right to control the performance of their works in the same way that composers of a song control the rights to use that song.  The argument is that, if these services are playing these comedy bits through a digital audio performance, not only do the comedians who are recorded performing such bits deserve a royalty, but a separate royalty should also be paid to those who wrote it.

In these lawsuits, the analogy is made to the copyrights for the performance of a song.  For music streamed by any digital audio company, there are two royalties that must be paid.  The composers of the music are paid for the performance of their work (both in the digital and analog worlds).  These payments are usually made through a performing rights organization (a “PRO”) which represents thousands (or sometimes millions) of composers and their publishing companies.  ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are the traditional PROs who, for radio and television, all have their rates reviewed for fairness under antitrust laws.  As we have written (see for instance our articles here and here), a new PRO for musical works, GMR, has recently settled litigation with the Radio Music License Committee and is assessing most commercial radio stations a royalty for the performance of music by the composers that it represents.  For digital performances, a royalty is also owned for the performance of the sound recording – the composition as recorded by a singer or band.  Through an act of Congress, all noninteractive digital performances (see our article here on the difference between interactive and noninteractive services) can be played by a digital music service by paying a “collective” that acts like a PRO by collecting royalties from those services that transmit the music to their listeners and distributing those royalties  to the performers and their record labels (as the labels usually own the copyright in the recording).  Since the sound recording digital performance royalty was first collected about two decades ago, SoundExchange has served as the “collective.”  The lawsuits by the comedians seek to collect these dual royalties from digital services that transmit comedy recordings to their listeners.  Why is this not covered by the royalties that services already pay? Continue Reading Public Performance Royalties for Comedy Recordings? – New PROs Claim that Additional Royalties Are Due

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

  • The FCC has issued a Public Notice confirming the comment and reply comment dates for its Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the adoption of ATSC 3.0. Comments are due August 8, 2022, and reply comments are due September 6, 2022.  As we reported in our last weekly update, the Third Further Notice seeks comment on the status of the Next Gen TV rollout and on certain specific issues including (1) the scheduled 2023 sunset of the requirement that a Next Gen TV station’s ATSC 1.0 simulcast primary video programming stream be “substantially similar” to its 3.0 primary programming stream, (2) the scheduled 2023 sunset of the requirement that a Next Gen TV station comply with the current ATSC A/322 technical standard, and (3) whether the FCC needs to take any action to insure that the patent rights in ATSC 3.0 technologies are being fairly licensed.
  • The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau issued a Public Notice offering assistance to any State Emergency Communications Committee that had not filed an updated State EAS Plan with the FCC. These updated EAS plans were due to be filed on July 5.  Broadcasters should insure they understand how any changes to their state’s plan affect their EAS obligations, including whether any changes have been made to the stations that they are to monitor to receive EAS alerts in their area.
  • The FCC issued its final agenda for next week’s monthly open meeting on July 14, 2022. As we have previously reported, the FCC is scheduled to consider whether to adopt a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on whether to update its rules to identify a new Nielson publication for determining a television station’s designated market area (“DMA”) for satellite and cable carriage purposes, and an Order and Sixth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the TV digital conversion. The Order and Sixth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would update the FCC’s rules to eliminate analog rules to reflect the recent termination of analog operations by LPTV and television translator stations.
  • July 18, 2022 is the reply comment deadline for the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the FCC’s proposed regulatory fees for fiscal year 2022. In initial comments filed this week, the NAB argued that the FCC’s methodology for imposing the fees on broadcasters was inexplicable as it raised fees on broadcasters by 13% while the FCC budget which the fees are to reimburse only increased by 2.1%.  The NAB made specific arguments as to where it believes the FCC misallocated its costs to broadcasters when computing the fees.  The state broadcast associations jointly filed comments expressing many of the same concerns.  The fees that the FCC is proposing for television and radio stations are set forth in Appendix C and Appendix G of the NPRM.  In the NPRM, the FCC specifically sought comments on the mechanism it uses to calculate the regulatory fees for television stations based on the population-based methodology it adopted several years ago.  While no specific issues on radio fees were teed up for comment by the NPRM, the broadcasters’ comments, as noted above, complain that the fees as proposed are too high.
  • The FCC issued a Public Notice with its quarterly summary of the number of broadcast stations in the country. This notice shows that the number of full-power and Class A TV stations is almost identical to that shown in the pre-pandemic June 2019 Public Notice.  There are about 135 fewer full-power radio stations, principally due to there being over 200 fewer AM stations.
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau entered into five consent decrees with radio licensees to resolve investigations into their online political files. In all five cases (available here, here, here, here and here), the licensees admitted that they had failed to timely place records of all requests for the purchase of political broadcast time in their political files in a timely manner, in violation of section 315(e)(3) of the Communications Act and Section 73.1943(c) of the FCC’s rules.  Noting, however, the licensees’ disclosures in their license renewal applications and the financial stress suffered by the radio industry due to the COVID pandemic, the Bureau did not impose financial penalties on the licensees, opting to only require them to implement a comprehensive compliance plan.  The continuing issuance of these consent decrees and their paperwork obligations reminds broadcasters of the importance that the FCC places on orders for political time being uploaded immediately (within one business day) into the political broadcasting section of a station’s online public inspection file.

The lazy days of summer continue to provide little respite from the regulatory actions of importance to broadcasters.  The good news is that there are no license renewal or EEO  deadlines during the month of July.  Nonetheless, there will be a number of July deadlines that require attention.

On July 1, comments are due on the FCC’s Office of Economics and Analytics annual call for comments on the State of Competition in the Communications Marketplace (see the Public Notice calling for these comments). The comments are used to prepare a report to Congress on communications competition issues and are sometimes referenced by the FCC itself in proceedings dealing with competition issues.  The FCC seeks comments on a list of questions about competition in both the Video and Audio marketplaces, including the impact of digital competitors on traditional providers and the role that regulation plays in the competitive landscape.  Reply comments are due August 1.

July 5 and July 18 are the comment and reply comment deadlines, respectively, for the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the FCC’s proposed regulatory fees for fiscal year 2022.  The fees that the FCC is proposing for television (full power and otherwise) and radio stations are set forth in Appendix C and Appendix G of the document.  The FCC is proposing an increase of approximately 13% for radio broadcasters.  Among other things, the FCC proposes to continue to assess fees for full-power broadcast television stations based on the population covered by a full-service broadcast television station’s contour, and it seeks comment on its mechanism for calculating the regulatory fee based on the this population-based methodology.  These fees will be set by the end of August or very early September, to be paid before the October 1 start of the government’s new fiscal year. Continue Reading July Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters:  Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists and Other Public File Obligations, Lowest Unit Charge Periods, License Renewal, Copyright Filings and More

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

  • The FCC has released a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that, if adopted at the FCC’s July 14, 2022 regular monthly open meeting, would seek comment on whether to update its rules to identify a new publication for determining a television station’s designated market area (“DMA”) for satellite and cable carriage purposes. Current FCC rules direct commercial TV stations to use Nielsen’s annual Station Index Directory and Household Estimates to determine their DMA, and stations rely on these determinations when they seek carriage on cable and satellite systems.  The proposed rule changes would remove references to the now defunct annual Station Index and Household Estimates and instead direct broadcasters to Nielsen’s Local TV Report.
  • The FCC released a Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in which it seeks comment on the state of the Next Generation Television, or ATSC 3.0, transition and on the scheduled sunsets of two rules adopted in 2017. First, the FCC seeks comment on the progress of broadcasters’ voluntary, market-driven deployment of ATSC 3.0 service and the current state of the ATSC 3.0 marketplace. The first rule on which the FCC seeks comment is the scheduled 2023 sunset of the requirement that a Next Gen TV station’s ATSC 1.0 simulcast primary video programming stream be “substantially similar” to its 3.0 primary programming stream. The FCC also seeks comment on the scheduled 2023 sunset of the requirement that a Next Gen TV station comply with the current ATSC A/322 technical standard.  Additionally, the FCC seeks comments on whether the technology for ATSC 3.0 has been made available on fair terms by the patent holders for that required technology.  Comments and reply comments will be due 30 and 60 days, respectively, after publication of the Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register.
  • In an Order released on June 22, 2022, the FCC restores clarifying language that was inadvertently eliminated almost 40 years ago from section 73.3527 of the FCC’s rules. The clarification relates to applicants, permittees, or licensees whose existing or prospective facilities are Class D FM stations or other educational stations that are wholly “instructional” in their programming.  Class D stations are noncommercial stations that operate with 10 watts on commercial channels.  Instructional stations are those used by schools wholly for student instruction or teacher training. This clarification makes clear that Class D and Instructional stations are exempt from the obligation to complete Quarterly Issues Programs Lists.
  • The FCC has released a draft Order and Sixth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which, if adopted at the FCC’s July 14, 2022 open meeting, would update the FCC’s rules to reflect the recent termination of analog operations by LPTV and television translator stations. The Order would (i) delete or revise rules that no longer have any practical effect given the completion of the LPTV/translator digital transition, or that are otherwise obsolete or irrelevant, and (ii) make certain ministerial changes, for example, to delete analog rules that were found in Part 74, and to add definitions and other information previously adopted in prior rulemaking proceedings. The Sixth Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would seek comment on updates to rules which reflect the digital transition, current technology, and/or Commission practices.
  • In a Memorandum Opinion and Order, the FCC’s Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree, which included a $1500 monetary penalty, with a licensee who admitted that it had transferred control of its station to a time broker during the course of a time brokerage agreement. The licensee admitted in FCC filings that there were times when it was unfamiliar with the programming and operations of the station.  FCC rules require that a licensee maintain ultimate control of all aspects of a station’s operations, even if another entity is providing programming and sales services.
  • The FCC announced the winners of the auction of construction permits for 18 new full-power television stations. The highest winning bid was just over $6.4 million for a new station at Grand Forks, ND. Winning bids of over $4 million were received for construction permits authorizing new stations at Freeport, IL; Alexandria, MN; and Flagstaff, AZ.  The full list of winning bids is available here, and the FCC public notice setting out the post-auction proceedings that are required before permits are issued is available here.