Discussion of FCC, copyright, advertising and other legal issues of importance to radio and television broadcasters and other media companies
Principal Editor: David O’Connor
Update – February 25, 2009 – The change in fees did not become effective as planned – see our post here.
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Months ago, the FCC announced that the fees paid by broadcasters (and other services) for the processing of applications and other filings would be going up. It was only recently that the notice was published…
The battle over the broadcast performance royalty has begun anew, with the introduction of legislation to impose a performance royalty for the use of sound recordings on broadcast stations. This royalty would be in addition to the royalties paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (which go to compensate composers of music), as this royalty would be paid to the performers of the music (and the copyright holders in the recorded performance – usually the record companies). The statement released by the sponsors of the bill cites numerous reasons for its adoption – including the facts that most other countries have such a royalty, that satellite and Internet radio have to pay the royalty, and that it will support musicians who otherwise do not get compensated for the use of their copyrighted material. The NAB has countered with a letter from its CEO David Rehr, arguing that musicians do in fact get compensation through the promotional value that they get from the exposure of their music on broadcast stations. The 50 state broadcast associations also sent a resolution to Congress, taking issue with the premises of the sponsors – citing the differences in the broadcast systems of the US and that of other countries where there is a performance royalty, and arguing that broadcasting is different from the digital services who have a greater potential for substitution for the purchase of music. What does this bill provide?
The bill introduced this year are very similar to the legislation proposed last year (which we summarized here); legislation that passed the House Judiciary Committee but never made it to the full House, nor to the Senate. Some of the provisions of this year’s version include:
While it seems like we just finished the election season, it seems like there is always an election somewhere. We are still getting calls about municipal and other state and local elections that are underway. And broadcasters need to remember that these elections, like the Federal elections that we’ve just been through, are subject to the FCC’s equal time (or "equal opportunities") rule. The requirement that lowest unit rates be applied in the 45 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election also apply to these elections. "Reasonable access," however, does not apply to state and local candidates – meaning that stations can refuse to take advertising for state and local elections (unlike for Federal elections where candidates must be given the right to buy spots in all classes and dayparts on a station), as long as all candidates for the same office are treated in the same way. So stations can take ads for State Senate candidates, and refuse to take ads for city council, or restrict those ads to overnight hours, as long as all candidates who are running against each other are treated in the same way.
One issue that arises surprisingly often is the issue of the station employee who runs for local office. An employee who appears on the air, and who decides to become a candidate for public office, will give rise to a station obligation to give equal opportunities to other candidates for that same office – free time equal to the amount of time that the employee’s recognizable voice or likeness appeared on the air. While a station can take the employee off the air to avoid obligations for equal opportunities, there are other options for a station. See our post here on some of those options.Continue Reading Reminder: Equal Time and Lowest Unit Rate Rules Apply to State and Municipal Elections
In these challenging economic times, it seems like almost every day we see a notice that a broadcast station has gone silent while the owner evaluates what to do with the facility. This seems particularly common among AM stations – many of which have significant operating costs and, in recent times, often minimal revenues. The DTV transition deadline (whenever that may be) may also result in a number of TV stations that don’t finish their DTV buildout in time being forced to go dark. While these times may call for these economic measures to cut costs to preserve the operations of other stations that are bringing in revenue, broadcasters must remember that there are specific steps that must be taken at the FCC to avoid fines or other problems down the road.
One of the first issues to be addressed is the requirement that the FCC be informed of the fact that a station has gone silent. Once a station has ceased operations for 10 days, a notice must be filed with the the FCC providing notification that the station is not operational. If the station remains silent for 30 days, specific permission, in the form of a request for Special Temporary Authority to remain silent, must be sought from the FCC. The rules refer to reasons beyond the control of the licensee as providing justification for the station being off the air. Traditionally, the FCC has wanted a licensee to demonstrate that there has been a technical issue that has kept the station off the air. The Commission was reluctant to accept financial concerns as providing justification for the station being silent – especially if there was no clear plan to sell the station or to promptly return it to the air. Perhaps the current economic climate may cause the FCC to be more understanding – at least for some period of time.Continue Reading Steps to Take When A Broadcast Station Goes Silent
On Thursday, the Obama administration appointed FCC Commissioner Michael Copps to be the Acting FCC Chairman until the administration selects its permanent Chairman, and that person is confirmed by the Senate. As we’ve written, the rumors are that the permanent Chair will be Julius Genachowski, a former classmate of the President. But, as far as we know (and according to the White House website’s list of appointments made so far), that appointment has not yet been formally made and sent to the Senate Commerce Committee for the initiation of hearings on the qualifications of the nominee. Commissioner Copps is the most senior of the remaining three Commissioners (Democrat Jonathan Adelstein and Republican Robert McDowell being the other two remaining Commissioners), and has been an outspoken advocate of more stringent regulation of the public interest performance of broadcasters (see, for instance, our posts here and here). What will his appointment as interim FCC chairman mean for broadcasters?
Initially, it would seem reasonable to assume that the Acting Chair will be principally occupied with the DTV transition, as least for the next few weeks, and perhaps longer if the pending legislation to delay the transition deadline until June 12 is adopted. It would also seem reasonable to assume that the Commission, at least for the short term, will not be tackling major regulatory initiatives (like the localism proceeding), until the permanent FCC Chair has taken office. One of the initial Executive Orders that was issued by the Obama administration was to freeze the actions of administrative executive agencies until the political appointments made by the administration have been confirmed and taken their places, so that the new administration is not saddled by regulations that don’t fit with its overall political agenda. While many in DC believe that this order does not apply to an "independent agency" like the FCC (which technically does not report to the administration, but instead to Congress), it would be reasonable to assume that the spirit of the order would be followed by the FCC.Continue Reading Commissioner Michael Copps Named As Acting FCC Chairman – What Does It Mean for Broadcasters?
The FCC last week issued a decision that should make Buyers think twice in determining how sales of broadcast stations are concluded – especially in the days of $325,000 potential fines for indecency violations. In the case decided last week, the Commission concluded that the licensee of a broadcast station was liable for fines for violations…
Come the New Year, we all engage in speculation about what’s ahead in our chosen fields, so it’s time for us to look into our crystal ball to try to discern what Washington may have in store for broadcasters in 2009. With each new year, a new set of regulatory issues face the broadcaster from the powers-that-be in Washington. But this year, with a new Presidential administration, new chairs of the Congressional committees that regulate broadcasters, and with a new FCC on the way, the potential regulatory challenges may cause the broadcaster to look at the new year with more trepidation than usual. In a year when the digital television transition finally becomes a reality, and with a troubled economy and no election or Olympic dollars to ease the downturn, who wants to deal with new regulatory obstacles? Yet, there are potential changes that could affect virtually all phases of the broadcast operations for both radio and television stations – technical, programming, sales, and even the use of music – all of which may have a direct impact on a station’s bottom line that can’t be ignored.
With the digital conversion, one would think that television broadcasters have all the technical issues that they need for 2009. But the FCC’s recent adoption of its “White Spaces” order, authorizing the operation of unlicensed wireless devices on the TV channels, insures that there will be other issues to watch. The White Spaces decision will likely be appealed. While the appeal is going on, the FCC will have to work on the details of the order’s implementation, including approving operators of the database that is supposed to list all the stations that the new wireless devices will have to protect, as well as “type accepting” the devices themselves, essentially certifying that the devices can do what their backers claim – knowing where they are through the use of geolocation technology, “sniffing” out signals to protect, and communicating with the database to avoid interference with local television, land mobile radio, and wireless microphone signals.Continue Reading Gazing Into the Crystal Ball – The Outlook for Broadcast Regulation in 2009
Just when you think that the year will come to a quiet end, something always seems to pop up. Today, the Copyright Royalty Board announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would change the reporting requirements for services that pay royalties for the use of sound recordings to SoundExchange. The proposed new rules would require that Reports of Use submitted by services relying on the statutory royalty contain "full census reporting" of all songs played by any service. Services would include all users of music who pay royalties due under Sections 112 or 114 of the Copyright Act – including Internet Radio, satellite radio, digital cable radio, digitally transmitted business establishment services, and radio-like services delivered by other digital means, including deliveries to cell phones. This reporting requirement would replace the current system, about which we wrote here, that only requires reporting for two weeks each quarter. Under the new rules, an Internet radio service would have to submit the name of every song that they play to SoundExchange, along with information as to how many times that song played, the name of the featured artist, and either the recording’s ISRC code or both the album title and label. Comments on this proposal are due by January 29.
Currently, the quarterly reports are filed electronically using an ASCII format and using either an Excel or Quattro Pro spreadsheet template as created by SoundExchange. The Board asks for comments as to whether there are technological impediments to providing this information in this manner, and if other changes should be made to more easily facilitate the delivery of this information. The Copyright Royalty Judges who make up the CRB expressed their opinion that the full census reporting is preferable to the limited information now provided, so that SoundExchange does not need to rely on estimates or projections to insure that all artists are fairly compensated when their works are played. Using census reporting, all artists can be paid based on how often their songs are actually played.Continue Reading Copyright Royalty Board Proposes Full “Census” Reporting for Services Paying Royalties to SoundExchange
The FCC last week issued an order fining a broadcast tower owner $2000 for failure to monitor the lights on its tower. The FCC requires that a tower owner either monitor the tower by visual inspection or by a properly installed automatic monitoring system, at least once every 24 hours. In this case, the tower owner…
Yesterday, the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit Morning News, which operate their publication and distribution operations through a joint operating agreement, announced that they will cut back on the physical publication of their papers – publishing full editions delivered to homes only three days a week. On other days, the papers will publish an abbreviated version, available only on newsstands. The papers will not abandon news coverage the remainder of the week, but will instead concentrate on their on-line presence, showing the power of the Internet to disrupt traditional media. As we said years ago in one of our first posts on this blog – New Media Changes Everything, and it seems that this is just another indication of how true that is. The broadcast media, particularly radio, has often looked at the advertisers served by the daily paper as a ripe source of new business, and may well see the Detroit change as a major business opportunity. But does it also change the FCC’s consideration of the multiple ownership rules applicable to radio and television cross-ownership with newspapers?
The FCC’s multiple ownership rules prohibit the ownership of a broadcast station and a "daily" newspaper that serve the same area. The rules define a daily paper as one that is "published" at least four days each week, and is circulated "generally in the community." Here, the Detroit papers arguably will not meet that 4 day a week requirement – at least for a publication that is generally circulated throughout the community. Of course, some may argue that the abbreviated newsstand copy constitutes a daily publication but one would assume that, sooner or later, even that will disappear. Thus, while there has been so much controversy about the Commission’s decision of one year ago (summarized here) deciding that combinations of broadcast properties and newspapers in Top 20 markets were presumed to be permissible, while those in smaller markets were not, one questions whether this still makes any sense in today’s marketplace where seemingly few can profitably publish a daily paper in most markets, and no one seems to want to rescue the many papers that have fallen on hard times. Continue Reading Detroit Newspapers Cut Back on Publishing and Home Delivery – What’s the Impact on FCC Ownership Regulation?
