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
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 yesterday released a Public Notice announcing that its CORES system, through which regulatory fees are submitted, has been updated and the incorrect regulatory fee amounts for radio stations have been corrected. As we wrote last week, the FCC asked that radio broadcasters suspend their fee filings when it became apparent that many radio fees had been miscomputed and CORES reported those fees to be much higher than they were supposed to be. The Public Notice says that problems that caused the misstated fees have been corrected, and that radio operators can now submit their fees.
The Public Notice says that fees are still due by September 26 at 11:59 PM EDT. No extension of time appears to have been granted. The Public Notice also says that the FCC will “reconcile” with radio broadcasters who paid an incorrect amount before the issue with CORES was discovered -seemingly indicating that refunds will be provided to those who paid more than was due. The FCC says that they will be reaching out to those broadcasters who paid incorrect amounts before the CORES problem was discovered. Continue Reading FCC Announces Filing of Radio Regulatory Fees is Back On – Due Date Still September 26
As we noted on our Blog earlier this week, there were reported problems with the system for filing annual regulatory fees. Fee amounts in the FCC’s CORES system, where the fee payments are made, were not corresponding in some cases to the FCC’s look-up system for checking what a station’s regulatory fees were supposed to…
Update – 9/13/2024 – We are hearing that fee increases being reported by many radio stations may not have resulted, as we speculate below, on the use of new census data, but instead from incorrect FCC calculations. If your fees went up unexpectedly, you may want to investigate further to see if the population covered by your station was properly computed.
Further Update – 9/13/2024, 5:30 PM EDT – The FCC has acknowledged issues with its computation of fees for radio stations. As we note in a new article that we just posted, the FCC has asked that broadcasters wait to submit their fees until the issue has been resolved. The FCC has not yet extended the due date for the fees, and we expect that the FCC will work quickly to update their CORES fee filing system to correct the fee amounts.
As we noted this past weekend in our weekly update of regulatory actions, the FCC last Friday released its Order setting the regulatory fees due from broadcasters and other FCC regulated entities – fees that the FCC is required to collect each year the start of the federal government’s new fiscal year which begins in October. This week, the FCC released a series of public notices detailing filing procedures. First was a Public Notice setting the deadline for payment of the fees as 11:59 PM Eastern Time on September 26. That Notice also stated that fees must be paid through the FCC’s CORES database, which is now open for such payments. That initial Notice promised a series of other public notices which followed, each addressing particular aspects of the fee filing process. However, even with all the notices about procedures, there already have been issues reported and questions about some of the payments and processes.
The follow-up public notices included a Fact Sheet – “What You Owe” – from the Media Bureau setting out specific fee filing procedures for broadcasters. That Fact Sheet, in addition to reiterating the requirement that fees be paid through the CORES system, notes that there is also a Media Services webpage from which broadcasters can view their fee obligations and get other information about the fee filing process. It has been reported that this webpage has, in some cases, been providing information different than that contained in the CORES system – including different information about the amounts of the fees that are owed for specific stations. We understand that the FCC is looking at these discrepancies and have been told that the CORES data should be the correct information. But if this issue comes up for one of your stations, we suggest an inquiry to confirm which payment amount is correct.Continue Reading FCC Regulatory Fees Due September 26 – FCC CORES Database Available for Payment, Some Filing Glitches Reported
As we wrote in several of our recent weekly summaries of regulatory issues for broadcasters, the FCC released a Public Notice the week before last announcing that regulatory fees must be submitted by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on September 28. This public notice set the deadline for the payment of fees established in the FCC’s Report and Order released just before Labor Day, which resolved objections to the higher fees that had been proposed for broadcasters by reducing those proposed fees somewhat (while still raising broadcaster’s fees on average about 8% over fees paid in prior years). Since the Public Notice setting the fee payment deadline, the FCC has been busy issuing numerous notices, providing guides, and launching web pages with information about the fees and the procedures for paying those fees.
A notice that should be reviewed by all broadcasters owing fees is one issued on Friday when the FCC released another Public Notice setting the specifics for payment of the fees. This notice details the payment process and requires that all payments be made through the FCC’s CORES database. The notice also states that payments can only be made by credit cards, VISA or Mastercard debit cards, ACH transfers or wire transfers. No cash or checks will be accepted.
Continue Reading More on FCC Regulatory Fees Due on September 28 – Public Notices on Payment Procedures, Deadlines, Amounts, and Waivers
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?
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.
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