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 this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
The Indiana Broadcasters Association recently asked me five questions to highlight the requirements of the FCC’s EEO rules. As these questions are applicable to all broadcasters, we are posting my response here. My answers are below.
Beyond the general requirement that all broadcasters (and all other businesses) avoid discrimination in hiring, promotion, and all other…
In the last few weeks, we have received several inquiries from broadcasters about the FCC’s enforcement of its requirements that broadcasters conduct non-vacancy specific outreach efforts to educate their communities about broadcast employment opportunities and to train their staff to assume greater responsibility at stations and otherwise assist them in their career development (not to train them for their current positions, but to prepare them to assume a position with more responsibilities as their careers advance). Stations are required to undertake a variety of activities to educate the public about broadcast employment opportunities (and the experience and skills that will be helpful to obtain these broadcast positions) and to train their employees to advance in their careers beyond their current positions. These outreach efforts must be undertaken even when stations don’t have job openings. The FCC has a whole list of “menu options” to meet these obligations (see them listed in the EEO training presentation that I did last year for a state broadcast association, available here). While these menu options were designed for a “normal” work environment, many can be adapted to today’s world where so much business and education is being done virtually.
When asked if these rules are still in effect, I have been telling broadcasters that the FCC has not said that these obligations are suspended during the pandemic. In fact, the FCC has been conducting EEO audits throughout the course of the pandemic (see our article here, for instance), so it appears that enforcement of the EEO rules continues unabated. While I expect that the FCC will be somewhat flexible in assessing compliance in these present circumstances, stations can accomplish many of the activities listed in the menu options even in the pandemic. In a webinar that I conducted recently for many of the states with upcoming radio license renewal deadlines, and in another webinar for a public broadcasters group in a midwestern state, I discussed some of those opportunities.
Continue Reading Looking at FCC Non-Vacancy Specific EEO Outreach Efforts – the “Menu Options” – in a Pandemic World
Each week, we summarize some of the regulatory and legal actions of the last week significant to broadcasters – both those from the FCC and those taken elsewhere –with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations. Here is this week’s list of significant…
Earlier this month, the FCC announced another of its regular EEO audits, though this time it’s just for cable systems and other MVPDs who, like broadcasters, have EEO obligations. The FCC will audit 5% of all broadcasters and cable companies each year to assess their EEO compliance, so be prepared in case you are…
An FCC decision fining a cable company $11,000 for not adequately recruiting for job openings should be viewed as a warning to broadcasters as well as well as MVPDs – failure to recruit for job openings by disseminating information about those opening through diverse sources will likely result in a substantial fine under the current rules being enforced by the Commission’s Media Bureau. As the Commission has held before (see our article here), simply recruiting through online sources will not be enough to avoid the imposition of a fine. In this case, the FCC specifically points out that approximately 30% of the cable system’s service area did not have Internet access, so people in that group were likely not exposed to information about the station’s job openings. As the Commission requires that job openings be publicized so as to reach all groups within a system’s (or a broadcast station’s) recruitment area (which is related to its core service area), the decision found that the failure to recruit so as to reach this significant portion of the local population, together with the failure to complete one year’s EEO public inspection file report, merited a fine of $11,000.
One of the interesting aspects of this decision is the emphasis that the Media Bureau continues to put on the distinction between online recruiting and other more traditional means of reaching out to potential job applicants (e.g. using employment agencies, sending notices to community groups, using college job offices, etc.). Even though Commissioner O’Rielly has suggested that the Commission allow recruiting to be done solely using online sources (see our article here), as that is much more in tune with the way that job seekers today look for potential employment opportunities, the Commission continues to insist on station’s using these more traditional outreach efforts regardless of their success rate. In fact, the FCC has never revisited its 2003 EEO order that presumes that the local newspaper is a source that can reach most groups within a community, when it no doubt can be proven that, in today’s world, the circulation of online job sites is significantly greater than that of almost any newspaper. Commissioner O’Rielly notes that the FCC itself has recognized the reach of the Internet through actions such as the requirements that broadcast and MVPD public files be moved online, and that disclosures about contest rules can be made online. Yet, in the EEO world, online recruitment, unless tied with the use of other more traditional outside sources, will bring a fine. Certainly, it is an issue that the FCC needs to revisit – and one that perhaps will be revisited in appeals of decisions like this one, or in response to the calls of Commissioner O’Rielly and others.
Continue Reading $11,000 FCC EEO Fine for Recruiting Solely Through Online Sources – Time to Revisit the FCC Rules?
As summer approaches, many stations are preparing for the arrival of summer interns. While internship programs can earn stations EEO “credit” towards meeting the requirement that they conduct non-vacancy specific outreach efforts (the so-called “menu options” or “supplemental efforts” offered by the FCC to encourage stations to reach out to their communities to educate community residents as to what jobs are available at broadcast stations, and how people can train for and find out about such openings (see the article here for a link to a presentation that I did on all of the FCC’s EEO requirements), stations need to be cautious in setting up their internship programs for other reasons. In recent years, there have been a large number of lawsuits in over whether interns need to be paid for their work. While these lawsuits have spanned many industries, several involved broadcasters and other media companies. Thus, we felt the need for this cautionary note.
These disputes arise over wage and hour issues. In the most general terms, lawyers for former interns who were not paid have argued that the interns should have been paid as they functioned as employees of the station. In analyzing these issues, courts look at a number of issues, principally to determine if the internship was one that was meant more to benefit the intern and their education, or whether it was of a greater benefit it the station. Where the interns do the work that a paid employee would normally do, then there is an argument that the intern should themselves have been paid. What issues do the courts review?
Continue Reading Summer Internships – Good for FCC EEO Credit, But Be Careful of Wage and Hour Law Implications
Last week, I conducted a webinar on the FCC’s EEO rules for 19 state broadcast associations, explaining the issues that broadcasters need to keep in mind to comply with those rules. The slides from my presentation are available here. On the same day, the FCC issued a Public Notice announcing another of their random EEO audits – this one limited to MVPD, principally cable systems, not broadcasters. But, as the FCC has promised to audit 5% of all broadcast stations every year, the MVPD audit notice only serves as a reminder to broadcasters to keep up their FCC outreach efforts and recordkeeping requirements to make sure that, if they are audited, they will pass with flying colors.
During my presentation, I had a series of questions about defining an employment unit for EEO purposes. A station employment unit is a group of commonly controlled stations serving a common geographic area having at least one employee in common. The number of employees in an employment unit is important for determining if a station has, for instance, 5 full-time (30 hours per week) employees making it subject to the FCC outreach efforts requirements (and, for TV stations, the requirement to file a Mid-Term EEO report). For radio groups, having 11 or more full-time employees in an employment unit makes them subject to the requirement to file with the FCC an EEO Mid-Term report. If the unit spans different states with different EEO public inspection file dates, the licensee should pick one of the dates and consistently apply it in the future (filing the consistently prepared reports on the deadlines for FCC filings for each station in the group). For stations newly acquired by an owners in its market, the buyer is responsible for the including the new station in the employment unit and reporting on the employment activities of the station from the date that the station is acquired.
Continue Reading A Presentation to Explain the FCC’s EEO Rules, and Another EEO Audit
EEO Mid-Term Reports on FCC Form 397 must be filed at the mid-point of the renewal cycle of radio stations if they are part of a station employment unit with more than 10 full-time employees, or 5 or more full-time employees for TV. A station employment unit is one or more commonly-controlled stations serving substantially the same area, and sharing at least one employee. As it has been 4 years since the first radio renewal applications were filed in the last license renewal cycle, June 1 brings the deadline for radio groups in Maryland, DC, Virginia and West Virginia that have more than 11 or more full-time (30 hours per week) employees to file their Form 397 Reports. The FCC yesterday issued a reminder to stations about this obligation.
The reminder does not address in any detail the content of the form. Essentially, the Form 397 (which can be viewed here) is like the Form 396 filed by stations in connection with their license renewal applications. After providing identifying information, the form requires that station licensees identify a person who is responsible for EEO compliance at the station, and to attach their last two EEO Public Inspection File Reports – the most recent of which will, for stations in these states, need to be placed in the public inspection file by June 1. These Public Inspection File reports can be reviewed by the FCC to assess the hiring efforts made by the broadcaster for job openings in the last two years to insure that the station’s outreach efforts to prospective new employees were sufficiently broad to attract applicants from all significant groups within the station’s service area. We wrote about the basics of the FCC’s EEO policies for broadcasters here.
Continue Reading FCC Issues Reminder on Form 397 EEO Mid-Term Reports – Filing Obligations Begin on June 1 for Radio Stations in DC, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia
In a post on the FCC’s blog, Commissioner Michael O’Rielly proposed allowing broadcasters to meet their EEO wide dissemination obligations solely through Internet sources. As we recently wrote, broadcasters need to widely disseminate information about job openings at their stations, using sources that are designed to reach all of the major groups that may exist within a station’s recruitment area. These sources could include school groups, minority organizations, social or community organizations, or other population groups that may exist in a station’s community. The current EEO rules, adopted a dozen years ago, suggested that a significant newspaper of general circulation may be one way to reach most of the groups within a community. But, as the Internet was not seen as universally available at that point, the FCC ruled that online sources alone would not be sufficient to meet these wide dissemination requirements. The FCC has continued to enforce that decision, even penalizing stations that relied solely on online sources for wide dissemination purposes (see, for instance, our summary of one such decision fining a number of stations that relied primarily on online sources, here). Commissioner O’Rielly suggests that this does not make sense in today’s world, as the Internet is much more available than the newspaper and other more “traditional” recruitment sources.
The Commissioner cites many statistics about the current availability of the Internet to diverse populations, and points to the fact that virtually all public libraries now have public Internet access, and one of the principal reasons for such Internet access if often to provide employment opportunities. He points to all of the online job sites that now exist, and the relative paucity of job listings in today’s newspaper. Will his proposal go anywhere?
Continue Reading Commissioner O’Rielly Proposes to Bring Mandatory FCC EEO Recruiting Into the Modern Era by Allowing Reliance on Internet Resources
