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 announced that regulatory fees must be submitted by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on September 28. In addition, the

While summer has started and minds wander to vacation time, there are still many regulatory obligations to which a broadcaster must pay attention in July.  To help stay focused, we have written below about some of the important dates and deadlines applicable to broadcasters in July – and a reminder of what to be ready for when the calendar rolls over to August.

The one regular deadline applicable to all full-power and Class A TV broadcasters in July is the July 10 deadline for stations to upload to their online public file their Quarterly Issues Programs lists identifying the issues of importance to their community and the programs that they broadcast in the second quarter of the year that addressed those issues.  Prepare these lists carefully and accurately, as they are your only official records of how your station is serving the public and addressing the needs and interests of your community.  You need to first list the significant issues facing the station’s community in the second quarter.  Then, for each issue identified, you should list several programs that addressed the issue in some serious way.  For each program, the description should include the issue that the program addressed, the name of the program or segment that covered the issue, the date and time the program or segment aired, the duration of the coverage of the issue, and a narrative describing how the issue was treated.  Timely uploading of these lists to the station’s online public file is especially important during the ongoing license renewal cycle when FCC staff are looking closely at public file contents.  See our article here for more on this obligation.
Continue Reading July Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, The End of Analog TV, EAS Test Registration Requirement, Radio and TV Rulemakings, 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.

  • New rules went into effect on May 24 that are designed to give broadcast TV stations greater flexibility in the

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 Supreme Court this week announced its decision in Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project, the broadcast ownership

Earlier this month, the FCC proposed changes to its Emergency Alert System (EAS) rules and initiated an inquiry as to whether EAS should be expanded to require streaming services to carry local emergency alerts (see our article here on those proposals).  These proposals have now been published in the Federal Register, starting the public

The FCC’s recent Notice of Proposed Rule Making outlining changes to the FCC’s Part 11 Rules governing the Emergency Alert System ("EAS") was published in the Federal Register today.  Today’s publication establishes the timing for submitting Comments in this proceeding.  Comments will be due by July 20, with Reply Comments due by August 4th.  By its

At the urging of virtually the entire broadcast and cable industry, as well as the communications engineering community, the FCC today granted an extension of time for broadcasters and other EAS participants to come into compliance with the new CAP reception requirements – putting off the need for compliance until September 30, 2011.  CAP (the Common Alerting

This afternoon, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) adopted the new digital message format for the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standard.  The adoption of this message format is the next step in the implementation of Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), which expands the traditional Emergency Alert System used by radio and television to