The Federal Trade Commission last week announced that it was dropping its appeal of a court decision which put on hold an FTC order adopted during the Biden administration which banned noncompete agreements in all industries across the country (see our note here). This ban was a concern to many in the broadcast industry as it would allow station employees, including on-air talent, managerial employees, and others with access to sensitive competitive information to freely move from station to station within a broadcast market.

But the FTC’s decision to drop the appeal of the court’s rejection of the nationwide ban does not mean that the FTC has abandoned all concerns about the use of noncompete agreements.  Instead, the FTC issued a Request for Information seeking public comment on the use of noncompete agreements, seeking information on a variety of issues including why an employer may use noncompete agreements, typical salary ranges of employees subject to these agreements, their terms or limitations, and harms imposed on employees by these agreements.  Comments are due November 3.  The FTC also announced plans to pursue concerns about such agreements on a case-by-case basis.

Continue Reading FTC Drops Appeal of Court’s Rejection of Nationwide Ban on Noncompete Agreements – To Pursue Individual Cases Where Noncompetes are an Unfair Trade Practice

As we noted in our weekly summary of regulatory activity of interest to broadcasters, the FCC on Friday released a number of public notices and fact sheets providing details of how broadcasters are to pay their annual regulatory fees. Included among the public notices was one setting the deadline for paying the regulatory fees as September 25th. The FCC’s filing system is open now so fees can be paid at any time prior to the September 25th deadline. The failure to pay fees by that deadline will result in a 25% penalty.  Interest will also accrue on late payments, as well as collection fees.  Thus, late payments are costly. 

Fees for each television station are set out in the FCC’s Report and Order setting those fees (in a table in Appendix F, pages 52-95 of the order – fees are established based on a station’s population coverage, so each station is assigned a specific fee).  Radio stations can look up their fees in a “look up database” that is available through a link that was set out in the Media Bureau Fact Sheet released on Friday. Broadcasters should check their fees carefully to make sure that they are paying the expected amount and are submitting payment for all of their affected facilities.  Remember, fees are based on a station’s facilities on October 1, 2024, the beginning of the last fiscal year.  For broadcasters with earth stations, those fees are set out in the Space Bureau Fact Sheet. 

Continue Reading Annual Regulatory Fees Due by September 25 – FCC Releases Public Notices and Fact Sheets on Paying Those Fees

Updated, 9/9/25 to correct typo in opening date for the filing of applications for new LPTV and TV translator stations in the second bullet below.

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 released its Report and Order setting its annual regulatory fees for 2025.  The FCC increased TV station fees by approximately 1.2% from last year, while slightly decreasing fees for most radio stations.  The FCC also released a Public Notice announcing that fees must be paid by September 25.  In addition, the FCC and its Bureaus released the following guides and fact sheets providing details for filing and paying 2025 regulatory fees: Media Bureau Fact Sheet (providing a link to the fee lookup database where radio broadcasters can determine what they owe), Space Bureau Fact Sheet (for earth stations), Payment Methods and Procedures Public Notice (providing details on the required use of the CORES database to initiate payment, and instructions for the use of wire transfers, ACH payments, or credits cards – checks and money orders can no longer be used to pay fees), Waiver, Reduction, Deferral, and Installment Payment Requests Public Notice (setting out the procedures to ask for a waiver or deferral of the fees on financial hardship grounds), and Regulatory Fee Exemptions Public Notice (noting those exempt from fees, including the de minimis exemption for entities with total liabilities of less than $1000 and exemptions for noncommercial educational station operators).  We further discussed broadcasters’ 2025 regulatory fees on our Broadcast Law Blog here, and will provide more details on information in some of the guides and fact sheets in a blog article this week.
  • The Media Bureau released a Public Notice announcing the opportunity for Class A, LPTV, and TV translator stations to file applications for major changes in channel and transmitter site location starting October 22, with a later opportunity to file applications for new LPTV and TV translator stations starting January 21.  This will be the first opportunity to file for new LPTV and TV translator stations in over 15 years.  To establish a stable database for applicants preparing their applications, the FCC set a filing freeze on all LPTV, Class A, and TV translator major change applications beginning on September 3, and a freeze beginning October 15 on all LPTV, Class A, and TV translator minor modification applications and LPTV and TV translator displacement applications.  The freeze will lift on October 22 when existing Class A, LPTV, and TV translator stations will have an opportunity to apply to modify their channels or transmitter site locations (provided that no site change of more than 121 km will be permitted).  Filing freezes will start again on December 3 before applications for new LPTV and TV translator applications and major changes can be filed starting January 21, 2026.  For more on this process, along with the specific periods of each filing freeze and each filing window, see our Broadcast Law Blog article here.
  • The Media Bureau released two decisions related to ATSC 3.0 transition applications:
    • The Bureau also adopted an Order reinstating inadvertently deleted rules that specify the information required for non-expedited ATSC 3.0 applications, rules which were accidentally deleted when the FCC’s 2023 Next Gen TV Third Report and Order was published in the Federal Register.  The Bureau stated that notice and comment procedures were unnecessary to do so because it merely corrected a ministerial error.
  • The Federal Trade Commission decided not to pursue an appeal of the court decision overturning the Biden Administration’s decision to ban noncompete agreements nationwide (we noted the Biden FTC’s ban here).  Instead, the FTC issued a Request for Information seeking public comment on the use of noncompete agreements, seeking information on a variety of issues including why an employer may use noncompete agreements, typical salary ranges of employees subject to these agreements, their terms or limitations, and harms imposed on employees by these agreements.  Comments are due November 3.  The FTC decided that, instead of a blanket nationwide ban, it will address the harmful effects of noncompete agreements on a case-by-case basis, with the FTC Chairman and another commissioner issuing a statement promising that notices to many industries warning them about the improper use of these agreements will be forthcoming.  The FTC also released a notice of a consent decree with one company, generally banning the use of these agreements for most of the company’s employees in the funeral crematorium industry.
  • The FCC announced that comments and reply comments are due September 25 and October 10, respectively, responding to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking reexamining the EAS and the Wireless Emergency Alerts system.  For EAS, the FCC seeks comment on questions including the system’s effectiveness and how it could be modernized.
  • Reply comments were filed responding to the FCC’s July Public Notice seeking to refresh the record on the FCC’s potential modification of the national TV ownership cap (prohibiting ownership interests in TV stations reaching more than 39% of the TV households nationwide), and the UHF discount (a 50% discount for UHF TV stations in calculating compliance with the national cap) (see our notes on the Public Notice here and on the initial comments here).  Broadcasters and pro-business advocacy groups again supported relaxing or eliminating the cap, arguing that it harms broadcasters’ ability to compete against digital media giants for viewers and ad revenues.  Cable and satellite operators, and groups that are generally viewed as pro-consumer, opposed changing the cap, arguing that the FCC lacks authority to do so (arguing that only Congress can) and that any relaxation would increase retransmission consent fees and cause other consumer harms.  Commenters were similarly split on whether to retain the UHF discount.  The reply comments can be found here.
  • The FCC announced that September 26 is the effective date of its Second Report and Order on earth station application processing, including streamlining processes for adding or removing communication points, expanding the list of license modification types not requiring prior authorization, and adopting 30-day “shot clock” for earth station renewal application processing.  While the Order is effective, before most of these modified rules can be relied on, they must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget. 
  • The FCC announced that August 26 is the effective date of the Media Bureau’s Order deleting cable and satellite rules that were vacated by federal courts over a decade ago including the temporary standstill rule for program carriage complaint proceedings and the rules limiting cable and satellite providers’ use of encoding to prevent or limit copying of their programming. 
  • There was regulatory activity in the ongoing arguments about perceived bias in the media and the extent to which the FCC has authority to act in this area:
    • Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem accused CBS of deceptively editing her interview on CBS’ August 31 “Face the Nation” broadcast by removing 4 minutes of her 16 minute interview, including when she discussed specific illegal acts allegedly engaged in by Kilmar Abrego Garcia which she claimed justified his deportation.  CBS had released a full transcript of the interview and posted a full-length version of the interview on YouTube.  Press reports state that Center for American Rights (CAR), which filed the still pending news distortion complaint against CBS for its “60 Minutes” broadcast of an interview with former Vice President Harris (see our note here), stated in a letter to the FCC that the Noem interview demonstrates that CBS has failed to fulfill its promise to appoint an ombudsman to handle bias complaints against the network as well as FCC Chairman Carr’s prior warnings against another broadcast network for coverage of the Abrego Garcia matter (see an example of Carr’s warning on X here).
    • CAR also filed a complaint with the FCC claiming that ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel violated the FCC’s conflict of interest policies underlying its rules against payola (the obligation to disclose to the audience payments made to stations in exchange for on-air content) and requiring equal opportunities (political candidates are entitled to access to airtime equal to that given to their opponents).  CAR’s claims (available for download here) that, as a broadcast employee, Kimmell was obligated to disclose his personal political interests, so his allegedly “lopsided” hosting of Democrats on his show violated FCC policies.
    • FCC Chairman Carr set a letter responding to Senator Blumenthal’s (D-CT) letter seeking information on the FCC’s approval of the Paramount-Skydance merger following allegations that President Trump unlawfully influenced the FCC’s approval of the merger in July (we noted the approval here, and other Democratic politicians’ letters to Carr and New Paramount CEO David Ellison on the matter here).  Carr’s response stated that the FCC conducted a standard review of the transaction and that New Paramount’s commitment to appoint an ombudsman is similar to that made by prior applicants seeking FCC merger approval.  Carr did not address Blumenthal’s request for information about discussion of the decision with the President or his agents before the merger’s approval.
  • The FCC acted on three MX groups (groups where multiple applicants sought authorizations for new stations that were “mutually exclusive,” i.e., based on interference, not all could be granted) seeking construction permits for new LPFM stations in Iowa, New Jersey, and Tennessee.  In each case, the FCC reevaluated the analysis of the “points system” used to determine which mutually exclusive applicant should be granted, and determined the applicant(s) with the next highest number of points should be designated as the new tentative selectee, and interested parties now have 30 days to file a petition to deny against those applicants, after which the Media Bureau will conduct a final review of the remaining applications. 
    • The FCC dismissed the application of the Iowa MX group’s tentative selectee (the applicant with the most points in FCC’s point system analysis) because the initial grant had been premised on a claim for two points for having a main studio that could originate programming within 20 miles of the proposed station’s transmitter site (as required for applicants seeking points outside of the top 50 markets).  But the applicant’s initial application had proposed a studio hundreds of miles away – and the FCC does not credit revised proposals, such as that made in this case, filed after the initial application filing deadline, thus leading to the dismissal. 
    • The FCC also found that the New Jersey and Tennessee MX groups’ tentative selectees did not qualify for one point each for having an established community presence (points given when, for the two years before the application was filed, an applicant outside of the top 50 markets was a nonprofit organization physically headquartered, or with 75% of its board members residing, within 20 miles of the proposed station’s transmitter site) because they failed to either submit supporting documentation for their claims or submitted that information after the initial application. 

On our Broadcast Law Blog, in addition to the articles on regulatory fees and the LPTV/TV translator windows mentioned above, we highlighted upcoming regulatory dates and deadlines affecting broadcasters this September and in early October.

Corrected 9/9/25 – to update the first date of the filing opportunity for new LPTV stations and TV translators to January 21, 2026.

The FCC’s Media Bureau released a Public Notice announcing the opportunity to file applications for major changes in the channel and location of LPTV, Class A, and TV translator stations starting on October 22, with a subsequent opportunity to file applications for new LPTV and TV translator stations starting on January 26.  These are not technically “windows” for filing applications as they do not have defined end dates, but they are instead the lifting of freezes on applications by these stations that have been in effect for well over a decade.  Once the freezes are lifted, as explained below, with limited exceptions for temporary freezes set by the Public Notice, these filing opportunities will remain in effect until further notice.  The opportunity to make major changes in existing stations, and to file for new stations, have long been requested by LPTV advocates anxious to improve station coverage and adapt to marketplace changes – opportunities that have largely been limited for over a decade during the TV incentive auction process and the subsequent repacking of the TV spectrum.

The “major change” window will allow for channel changes by existing stations and site moves of up to 121 kilometers (roughly 75 miles).  To have a stable database from which applicants can operate, a freeze on all major changes for these stations went into effect on September 3, and all minor changes will be temporarily frozen on October 15 (details below). 

Applications for new LPTV and TV translators will be allowed starting on January 21 – with another temporary freeze on all major changes taking effect on December 3, and one on minor changes on January 14.  This will be the first opportunity to file for new LPTV and TV translator stations in 15 years as the FCC froze applications for new stations in 2010 (see our article here), and had precluded applications in larger markets well before that date.  All freezes will be lifted on January 26. 

Continue Reading Windows for Filing Applications for LPTV and TV Translator Major Changes and New Stations Announced By FCC

Last Friday, the FCC released its Order adopting the regulatory fees to be paid by broadcasters and other regulated entities at some point before the October 1 start of the federal government’s new fiscal year.  The Commission slightly increased fees for TV stations by 1.2% from last year (from $0.006598 to $0.006674 per population served) after the FCC refined its fee estimates made earlier this year to account for exempt stations.  Fees for radio stations, however, generally decreased slightly from last year. 

While the Order setting the fees has now been released, the dates and procedures for making those payments will follow.  If done in the same manner as in recent years, the FCC and its respective Bureaus will soon release Public Notices and Fact Sheets detailing how and when the payments must be made, procedures for requesting waivers or deferrals of the payments, and specifics for the different industries regulated by the Commission.

While these subsequent notices should follow in the next week or so, broadcasters should start computing their fee obligations so that they are ready to make the payments when the procedures and dates are established.  The fees for TV stations are determined by the population covered by the station, with the specific fees set forth in a table in Appendix F (pages 52-95) of the Order.  There are flat fees for LPTV stations, Class A TV stations, TV translators, FM translators, and FM boosters ($275), for construction permits for new full-power TV stations ($5,200), and for new AM and FM construction permits ($585 and $1025 respectively).  The are also flat fees for transmit/receive and transmit-only earth stations ($2,060), while receive-only earth stations are exempt from fees. 

Radio fees will be paid based on the class and population coverage of the station, as set forth in the Table below:

FY 2025 RADIO STATION REGULATORY FEES
Population ServedAM Class AAM Class BAM Class CAM Class DFM Classes A, B1 & C3FM Classes B, C, C0, C1 & C2
<=10,000 $545  $395  $340  $375  $600  $685  
10,001 – 25,000$910  $655  $570  $625  $1,000  $1,140  
25,001 – 75,000$1,365  $985  $855  $940  $1,500  $1,710  
75,001 – 150,000$2,050  $1,475  $1,285  $1,405  $2,250  $2,565  
150,001 – 500,000$3,075  $2,215  $1,925  $2,115  $3,380  $3,855  
500,001 – 1,200,000$4,605  $3,315  $2,885  $3,160  $5,060  $5,770  
1,200,001 – 3,000,000$6,915  $4,980  $4,330  $4,750  $7,600  $8,665  
3,000,001 – 6,000,000$10,365  $7,460  $6,490  $7,120  $11,390  $12,985  
>6,000,000$15,550  $11,195$9,740  $10,680$17,090  $19,485  

Check out the Order for more details – and get ready to make your payments by the September deadline that will be established shortly. 

It is time for our look at September’s regulatory dates and deadlines to which broadcasters should be paying attention – and the deadline that probably is most important to all commercial broadcasters is not yet known.  That, of course, is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees – which must be made before the federal government’s October 1 start of the new fiscal year.  We expect an announcement of the final decision on the amount of those fees for various broadcasters, and the deadlines for payment, in the next few days.  Keep on the alert for that announcement. 

Below is our summary of the other dates affecting broadcasters this September, including the effective date of the Emergency Alert System’s (“EAS”) new Missing and Endangered Persons event code, comment and other pleading deadlines in several FCC proceedings, the deadline for affected broadcasters to file their responses to the FCC’s August 2025 EEO Audit Letter, in addition to several political file window dates.

September 8 is the effective date of the new EAS Missing and Endangered Persons event code to be used by all EAS Participants, including broadcast stations.  In August 2024, the FCC adopted a Report and Order creating a new EAS event code for persons over the age of 17 who are missing or abducted from states, territories, or tribal communities (known as Ashanti Alerts), but delayed its effective date to provide EAS Participants with enough time to update their EAS systems to use the code.

Continue Reading September 2025 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – FCC Regulatory Fees, Political Windows, EAS Event Code, Rulemaking Comment Deadlines, 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.

  • The Radio Music License Committee announced settlements with both ASCAP and BMI of rate court litigation over the royalties to be paid these organizations by commercial radio companies for the public performance of musical works.  The rates for both will be increasing, though the ASCAP rates have not been made public.  BMI rates will increase from approximately 1.7% of revenue to 2.2%.  The settlements are retroactive to 2022, with the BMI agreement providing that commercial radio stations will, beginning in October, need to make payments over 18 months to account for the rates agreed to for 2022, 2023, and 2024, which exceeded the carry-over interim rates for those years that have been paid by radio operators.  For more on these settlements, see our Broadcast Law Blog article here.
  • The FCC each week updates its list of “items on circulation,” i.e., orders that have been drafted by the FCC staff and are under review by the FCC Commissioners.  One of the items added to the list this week is an Order on the annual Regulatory Fees.  This means that we should see details of those fees as soon as the Commissioners can review and vote on the proposed order.  These fees must be paid prior to the October 1 start of the federal government’s fiscal year, so expect this order and subsequent notices about payment deadlines to be released in the next few weeks.
  • The FCC announced that comments and reply comments are due September 18 and October 3, respectively, on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing significant revisions to the FCC’s procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.  The proposed changes are aimed at streamlining the process for determining if constructing communications facilities, including broadcast towers, will affect the environment and historical sites.
  • The FCC announced that comments are due September 9 responding to its Direct Final Rule repealing 98 broadcast rules that it identified in the Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding as obsolete, outdated, or unnecessary.  The deleted rules will become effective on October 20 unless substantive comments against the deletions are filed, in which case the FCC will provide additional notice of the changes and ask for and consider public comment before the deletions take effect.  The deleted rules include over-the-air subscription TV approval procedures, the requirement that radio and TV stations be equipped with specific instruments for determining station power levels, several international broadcast station technical requirements, rules requiring specific station operating power calculation methods, and certain rules that simply provide references to FCC policies (the underlying policies are not affected by the deletion of these references).
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau released an Order deleting certain cable and satellite rules which were vacated by two court decisions issued more than a decade ago: the FCC’s former temporary standstill rule for program carriage complaint proceedings that was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2013, and the FCC’s former limits on cable and satellite providers using encoding to prevent or limit copying of their programming that was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003.  The Bureau deleted these vacated rules to further the FCC’s goal in the Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding of removing rules that “no longer have any operative effect.”  Unlike the FCC’s procedures in “direct final rule” proceedings, the Bureau stated that these rule eliminations were not subject to any form of public comment because it merely eliminated rules lacking any legal effect as the courts had vacated them.
  • The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit filed by SGCI Holdings III LLC, the Standard General company that sought to acquire the TEGNA television stations, and its managing member Soohyung Kim, against the FCC, former FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel and former FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, broadcast station owner Byron Allen and his company (an allegedly unsuccessful bidder for the TEGNA stations), and a number of other individuals and groups including parties who argued before the FCC against the approval of the transaction, alleging that they conspired to cause the FCC to “pocket veto” the transaction by designating it for hearing for discriminatory reasons because Mr. Kim was not the “right type of minority” (we wrote about the hearing designation here).  The Court found that the First Amendment protected most of the comments made before the FCC arguing against the approval of the deal, and it further concluded that the plaintiff had not shown evidence of racial discrimination.
  • The FCC, through publication in the Federal Register, announced that comments are due October 20 in response to the following proposed radio station community of license changes: KTSN(AM), from Lockhart, Texas, to San Leanna, Texas (proposal here); WQVR(AM), from Webster, Massachusetts, to Paxton, Massachusetts (here); WRHC(AM), from Coral Gables, Florida, to Doral, Florida (here); KPYG(FM), from Cayucos, California, to Santa Margarita, California (here); KWWV(FM), from Santa Margarita, California, to Cayucos, California (here); and KILX(FM), from De Queen, Arizona, to Lockesburg, Arizona (here).
  • The Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with a North Carolina LPFM station for violating the FCC’s assignment and transfer of control rules.  The Bureau found the station’s former and current licensees entered into an affiliate agreement where the station’s current licensee ceded complete control over the station’s programming to its former licensee, allowing the station’s former licensee to regain control of the station without prior FCC approval.  The Consent Decree requires that the station pay a $2,000 voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury and to implement a compliance plan to ensure compliance with the FCC’s assignment and transfer rules.  The Bureau will also grant the station’s license renewal application, but only for a 1-year term so that it can ensure the station’s continued compliance with the rules.
  • Democratic politicians sought information as to whether President Trump unlawfully influenced the FCC’s approval of the Paramount-Skydance Media merger last month (we noted the approval here):
    • Congressmen Pallone (D-NJ) and Raskin (D-MD) sent Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison a letter requesting information on recent reports and statements by President Trump that the company offered to provide the President with free access to $15 to $20 million worth of public service announcements on CBS stations in exchange for approval of the merger, as well as on Paramount’s $16 million settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS (which we noted here), changes to CBS polices that align with the Trump Administration’s political agenda, its ending initiatives aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its promises to eliminate “perceived bias” in its reporting.  Pallone and Raskin state that these actions, if done to curry favor with the President to receive FCC approval, would violate federal and state anti-bribery statutes. 
    • Senator Schiff (D-CA) sent FCC Chairman Carr a letter requesting information on the role President Trump may have played in influencing the FCC’s approval of the merger referencing FCC news releases indicating that the merger’s approval was conditioned on Skydance’s efforts to “eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination” – statements which Schiff maintains suggest an active and unlawful effort by the FCC to shape the company’s future programming content in alignment with President Trump’s earlier criticisms of Paramount.  Schiff requests that Carr provide information on communications between the White House and the FCC on conditions for approving the merger.  Schiff also requests information on Carr and Ellison’s meeting just a week before the FCC approved the merger, including whether the meeting included discussions regarding the need for the company to make programming, editorial commitments, or content oversight concessions in exchange for the merger’s approval.

With the upcoming long Labor Day weekend, depending on the news in the next week, we may not publish this weekly update next week, but instead be back with our next update in two weeks.  However, in the interim, watch this Blog for announcements on the FCC’s annual regulatory fees.

This week it was announced that the Radio Music License Committee, the organization that represents the commercial radio industry in its negotiations with performing rights organizations over the public performance rights in musical works (the musical compositions – the words and music to any song), had entered into settlement agreements with both ASCAP and BMI to settle rate court litigation over the amount of royalties to be paid by the industry for the period from 2022 through 2029.  Rate courts, pursuant to the antitrust consent decrees under which both ASCAP and BMI operate, determine reasonable rates for music licensed by ASCAP and BMI if parties cannot voluntarily negotiate deals for the use of that music.  Agreements between RMLC and both ASCAP and BMI expired at the end of 2021, so the commercial radio industry has been paying interim rates at the level of the prior agreements since January 1, 2022.  Now both organizations have reached deals with RMLC for the rates for the next three years, and those deals include a “true up” for the difference between the old rates and the new rates for the period from 2022 through the end of 2024. 

The rates for BMI are increasing from approximately 1.7% of a station’s revenue to the following levels:

  • 2.14% for 2022 and 2023,
  • 2.26% for 2024,
  • 2.19% for 2025
  • 2.20% for 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029

The agreements also contain details about lower rates for stations that have significant talk or other non-music programming, and definitions of what constitutes “revenue” that is subject to royalties.  Under the BMI agreement, the difference between the rates from 2022 to the end of 2024 under the prior agreement (2024 being the last full year for which station revenues have been reported) and that specified in the new settlement must be made up by monthly payments over the next 18 months, starting with payments in October 2025. 

While the ASCAP rates have not been made public, we can assume that the increase is not as large as that for BMI, as BMI announced their rate increase as being one of “historic” size.  But the ASCAP announcement does reference an increase.  Stations should learn the details of that increase from private correspondence from ASCAP or the RMLC in the near term.  Why would RMLC agree to these rate increases?

Continue Reading BMI and ASCAP Enter into Agreements with Commercial Radio Industry – Music Royalty Rates Going Up Retroactive to 2022

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 the full text of its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted at its regular monthly Open Meeting earlier this month proposing significant revisions to the FCC’s procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.  The proposed changes are aimed at streamlining the process for determining if constructing communications facilities, including broadcast towers, will affect the environment and historical sites.  Comments and reply comment dates will be announced when the NPRM is published in the Federal Register.
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau granted permission for Connoisseur Media to assume control of Alpha Media and its radio stations.  The grant included a waiver of the Local Radio Ownership Rule to allow the company to control 8 stations in the Tyler-Longview market, where the rules currently limit ownership to 7 full-power commercial stations, finding that this combination merely preserved the status quo in the market, leaving in place an ownership situation not caused by Alpha, but created when BIA reclassified two out-of-market stations as being home to the market.  As the Tyler-Longview market is highly diverse in ownership and programming, preserving the status quo would not have any anticompetitive effects on the market nor frustrate the Local Radio Ownership Rule’s purpose. 
  • The President of the Arizona State Senate sent FCC Chairman Carr a letter requesting that the FCC investigate the Arizona State University-owned PBS affiliate in Phoenix for its coverage of the 2022 Arizona governor’s race.  The letter alleges that the station interviewed Democratic gubernational candidate (now Arizona governor) Katie Hobbs on the air after Hobbs declined to debate Lake, while refusing to interview Lake because University officials disagreed with her denial of the 2020 Presidential Election results.  The letter requests that the FCC investigate the station for viewpoint discrimination and recommends that the FCC revoke the station’s license to protect Arizona viewers from media manipulation. 
  • The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued two Notices of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting to property owners in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Springfield, Illinois for allegedly allowing pirates to broadcast from their properties.  The Bureau warned the property owners that the FCC may issue fines of up to $2,453,218 under the PIRATE Radio Act against each owner if they continue to permit pirate radio broadcasting from their properties.
  • The Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with a group of TV stations to settle a September 2024 Forfeiture Order which imposed a $140,000 monetary penalty on their licensee for their airing of program length commercials (where a character in a children’s program appears in a commercial during that program, thereby making the entire program into a commercial that violates the FCC’s commercial limits in children’s programs) during a Hot Wheels program (see our note here).  As with the Bureau’s recent Consent Decrees with other TV stations who received fines because of the same program (see our notes here, here, and here), this Decree eliminates the licensee’s financial penalty and requires it to implement a compliance plan to avoid future children’s programming commercial limit violations.  As we noted here, the Bureau also entered into a Consent Decree in June with Sinclair, the Hot Wheels program originator, replacing its $2.6 million penalty under the same Forfeiture Order with a $500,000 payment and a compliance plan that resolved both the Hot Wheels matter and other issues.
  • The Media Bureau released three NPRMs proposing changes to the FM and TV Tables of Allotments.  The first NPRM proposes a change in the city of license for KQSL(TV) by amending the TV Table to specify the use of TV Channel 8 at Cloverdale, California instead of at Fort Bragg, California, thus providing fast-growing Cloverdale with its first local service (while another station remains licensed to Fort Bragg).  The second NPRM proposes substituting TV Channel 26 for Channel 16 at West Point, Mississippi to address potential interference that could be caused by planned antenna sharing of petitioner’s TV station with another TV station.  The third NPRM proposes allotting FM Channel 226C3 for use by a new station at Enterprise, Utah.  A new station on this proposed channel would provide Enterprise with its second local service. 
  • The Media Bureau granted an FM station’s modification application to change its community of license from Channel 250A at Batesville, Texas to Channel 250A at Pearsall, Texas to allow it to move its transmitter site and serve more people.  The Bureau noted that the station’s existing community of Batesville would still be served by another FM station licensed to that community, and residents of the community can receive service from five other stations.

On our Broadcast Law Blog, we discussed the FCC’s release last week of its first EEO audit notice for 2025 – the first to be issued under FCC Chairman Carr’s leadership – noting how the audits now seem to be aimed in part at seeking out the types of “invidious” DEI programs – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — that the current administration has labeled as discriminatory.

In our recent post on the FCC’s first EEO audit of the Carr administration at the FCC, we expressed surprise that the audit was released, thinking that the Commission might move to revise the EEO rules and put enforcement of the current rules on hold, just as it has done with the Biennial Ownership Reports.  In the remainder of our article, we went on to discuss the audit as if it was simply asking for information to review the FCC’s EEO rules as they have been enforced for the last 20 years.  But thanks to another attorney who more closely reviewed the language of the FCC’s audit letter and alerted me to changes in these letters, we now know that the audits actually go beyond the issues previously reviewed by the FCC – and seek out information about programs that favor one race, ethnicity or gender in hiring and other employment evaluations.  The audits now seem to be aimed in part at seeking out the types of “invidious” DEI programs – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — that the current administration has labeled as discriminatory in and of themselves in transactions involving the biggest players in the communications industry.  The FCC now seems to be looking for evidence of these DEI programs at all broadcast stations, just as they are seeking to root out and end these policies in other industries throughout the country.

In looking closely at the new audit letters, the Enforcement Bureau has added four paragraphs requiring the audited station to respond to various DEI questions. First, section 2(b)(vi)(a) of the letter asks about any complaints made by employees either internally to station management or externally to relevant authorities of “any bias, sensitivity or any other matters related to race, color, religion, national origin or sex.”  While that wording is not the clearest, it appears that this question is looking for complaints alleging that employment decisions were improperly made with a bias or other preferences favoring persons of a particular race, ethnicity, religion or gender.  In the past, only complaints of discrimination that led to disfavoring persons based on those qualities were reported.  Plus, in the past, only complaints to government agencies were reported.  Here, information about internal complaints and how such complaints were dealt with by the station are requested, as is information as to internal station policies of how such complaints should be treated.

Continue Reading A Closer Look At the FCC’s First EEO Notice of 2025 –  New Questions to Root Out DEI Issues