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At the end of April, we noted in our weekly summary of regulatory actions for broadcasters that the FCC had issued its first EEO audit notice for 2023 (available here), this time targeting over 200 radio and TV stations.  Those stations, and the station employment units (commonly owned stations serving the same area) with which they are associated, must provide to the FCC (by uploading the information to their online public inspection file) their last two years of EEO Annual Public File reports, as well as backing data to show that the station in fact did everything that was required under the FCC rules.  The response to the April audit is due to be uploaded to the public file of affected stations by June 8, 2023. 

While we noted the release of the audit notice, we thought that we should post our customary article describing the audit requirements and the basics of the FCC EEO rules as a reminder to all stations as to their general FCC EEO obligations.  The FCC has promised to randomly audit approximately 5% of all broadcast stations each year. As the response (and the audit letter itself) must be uploaded to the public file, it can be reviewed not only by the FCC, but also by anyone else with an internet connection anywhere, at any time.  The recent fine imposed on Cumulus Media for a late upload of a single EEO Annual Public File Report (see our article here) and the FCC’s pending consideration of the return of the EEO Form 395 reporting on the race and gender of all station employees (see our article here), shows how seriously the FCC takes EEO obligations. So, whether you are on the list or not, this is a good time for broadcasters to review what is generally required by the FCC’s EEO rules.…

Continue Reading Reminder About Broadcasters’ FCC EEO Obligations After the April’s First 2023 Audit of Station Performance

Early this year, we provided our look into the crystal ball to see what was on the FCC’s agenda for broadcasters in  the coming year.  Yesterday, the FCC published in the Federal Register its own list – its Semiannual Regulatory Agenda – listing an inventory of the matters at the FCC awaiting Commission action.  The…

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…

The FCC last Friday released its second EEO audit notice for 2022 (available here), this time targeting approximately 130 radio and TV stations.  Those stations, and the station employment units (commonly owned stations serving the same area) with which they are associated, must provide to the FCC (by uploading the information to their online public inspection file) their last two years of EEO Annual Public File reports, as well as backing data to show that the station in fact did everything that was required under the FCC rules.

Audited stations must provide sample copies of notices sent to employment outreach sources about each full-time vacancy at the stations, as well as documentation of the supplemental efforts that all station employment units with 5 or more full-time employees are required to perform (whether or not they had job openings in any year). These non-vacancy specific outreach efforts are designed, for example, to educate the community about broadcast employment positions and to train employees for more senior roles in broadcasting. Stations must also provide, in response to the audit, information about how they self-assessed the performance of their EEO program. Information about any pending or resolved proceedings involving discrimination claims must also be reported.  Stations that are listed in the audit notice have until October 7, 2022, to upload this information and other specified information about their EEO program to their online public file.  One new note on this audit – the FCC will not inform audited stations that their EEO performance was found satisfactory, but the Commission’s staff will inquire if they have questions or concerns about the performance of any employment unit.
Continue Reading FCC Releases Second EEO Audit Notice for 2022 – Reviewing a Broadcaster’s EEO Obligations

On Friday, the FCC  released another of its regular EEO audit notices (notice and list of affected stations available here), asking approximately 200 radio and TV stations, and the station employment units with which they are associated (i.e., commonly owned stations serving the same area), to respond to the audit notices by September 20, 2021.  Audited stations must upload their response to their online public inspection file. The response should include copies of the employment unit’s EEO Annual Public File reports for the last two years, as well as backup data showing that the station in fact did everything that was required under the FCC rules.  This is the second audit of 2021 (see our article here on the first audit commenced earlier this year).  It appears that this audit targets stations in states who have recently had license renewals reviewed, as stations in states with recent license renewals would already have their EEO record under review as part of the renewal process.

Audited stations must provide representative copies of notices sent to employment outreach sources about each full-time vacancy as well as documentation of the supplemental efforts that all station employment units with 5 or more full-time employees are required to perform (whether or not they had job openings in any year). These non-vacancy specific outreach efforts, which are outlined as “menu options” in the FCC’s rules, are designed to educate the community about broadcast employment positions and to train employees for more senior roles in broadcasting. Stations must also provide information about how they self-assessed the performance of their EEO program. Answers to certain other questions are also required. …
Continue Reading FCC Audits Another 200 Broadcast Stations on EEO Performance

The FCC yesterday announced a policy that will relieve broadcasters of wide-dissemination EEO obligations in rehiring laid-off employees in a post-shutdown world.  Because of the significant economic hit taken by broadcasters when so many advertisers pulled their advertising schedules as so many businesses shut down, many broadcasters who did not receive PPP loans were forced to lay off employees in order to be able to afford to continue operating.  As the economy recovers, it is hoped, some of those employees can be rehired.  The FCC Media Bureau’s order released yesterday may make some of that hiring somewhat easier.

The decision yesterday allowed broadcasters who were forced to terminate employees because of the pandemic to rehire those same employees at some point in the future (within 9 months of the time that they were laid off), without having to go through the “wide dissemination” that the FCC rules normally require before an employment vacancy is filled.  Normally, the FCC requires that before filling any full-time employment vacancy, a broadcaster must advertise broadly to reach all groups within its community to inform them of the job opening to insure a pool of diverse recruits from which to fill that position (see our article here on the wide dissemination requirement).  Under this decision, the FCC will allow broadcasters to simply rehire an employee who was let go – without any wide dissemination of the job opening – if economic conditions allow for their re-hiring within 9 months of when they were first laid off.
Continue Reading EEO Relief for Broadcasters Hiring in the Post-Shutdown World

The FCC yesterday released another of its regular EEO audit notices (available here), asking that approximately 80 radio stations, and the employment units with which they are associated, provide to the FCC (by posting the information in their online public inspection file) their last two year’s EEO Annual Public File reports, as well as backing data to show that the station in fact did everything that was required under the FCC rules. Audited stations must provide copies of notices sent to employment outreach sources about each full-time vacancy at the stations as well as documentation of the supplemental efforts that all station employment units with 5 or more full-time employees are required to perform (whether or not they had job openings in any year). These non-vacancy specific outreach efforts are designed to educate the community about broadcast employment positions and to train employees for more senior roles in broadcasting. Stations must also provide, in response to the audit, information about how they self-assessed the performance of their EEO program. Stations that are listed in the audit notice have until July 29, 2019 to upload this information into their online public file.

The FCC has promised to randomly audit 5% of all broadcast stations each year. As the response (and the audit letter itself) must be uploaded to the public file, it can be reviewed not only by the FCC, but also by anyone else with an internet connection anywhere, at any time.  The license renewal cycle which just began adds to the importance of this audit, as a broadcaster does not want a recent compliance issue to headline the record the FCC will be reviewing with its license renewal (see our article here about the upcoming license renewal cycle). So this is a good time for broadcasters to review what is required by the FCC’s EEO rules.
Continue Reading Another EEO Audit Released – Looking at the FCC’s Current EEO Obligations

A Notice of Apparent Liability released yesterday shows that the FCC is still enforcing its EEO rules even though those rules have been somewhat relaxed to reflect modern recruiting practices. As we wrote here, the FCC now allows a station to recruit to fill employment vacancies solely by using online sources. But, as we warned here, that does not mean that a station can ignore its obligations to document its EEO efforts and to otherwise observe all of the obligations set out in the EEO rules. In yesterday’s action, the FCC’s Media Bureau proposes a $20,000 fine for a license operating a 5-station cluster in South Carolina that allegedly did not keep good EEO records and, when subject to a random EEO audit, was unable to identify any recruitment sources for other than word-of-mouth recruiting for 6 of 11 hires over a two-year period. For several positions, the licensee was said to not even be able to provide information about any recruitment sources that were used by the station.

The FCC requires stations to use sources other than its existing employees to recruit to fill full-time vacant positions. Using simply word-of mouth recruiting is considered to be recruiting through the “old-boys network” that the FCC’s EEO rules are designed to overcome, so this violation alone was enough for the FCC to have concerns. But, according to the FCC’s Notice, that was not the only deficiency in the licensee’s paperwork.
Continue Reading FCC Still Enforcing EEO Rules For Broadcasters – $20,000 Fine for Stations that Did Not Document EEO Outreach

The FCC recently issued a declaratory ruling (which we summarized here) addressing the requirement that broadcasters widely disseminate information about all of their job openings in such a way as to reach all of the groups within their communities. The recent FCC decision stated that a broadcaster can now rely solely on online sources to meet the wide dissemination obligation. In the past, the sole reliance on online sources would have brought a fine from the FCC, so this is a big change for broadcasters – one which recognizes the realities in the world today as to where people actually go to find information about job openings .

This decision does not end all other EEO obligations imposed by the FCC rules. The Indiana Broadcasters Association recently asked me 5 questions about that new decision to highlight some of the other obligations that still arise under the FCC’s EEO rules. Here is that discussion of the continuing obligations under the EEO rules:

  1.  The FCC recently issued a Declaratory Ruling about how Job Openings should be posted.  What’s changing?

The FCC is now permitting broadcasters (and cable companies) to meet their obligation to widely disseminate information about their job openings solely through the use of online recruitment sources. In the past, broadcasters were fined if they did not, in addition to online sources, use recruitment sources such as community groups, employment agencies, educational institutions and newspapers to solicit candidates for virtually all open positions at any station. Under the FCC’s new ruling, a broadcaster can use online recruitment sources as their sole means of meeting their obligation to widely disseminate information about job openings, as long as the broadcaster reasonably believes that the online source or sources that it uses are sufficient to reach members of the diverse groups represented in its community.
Continue Reading 5 Questions on the Meaning of the FCC’s Recent Ruling on Online Recruiting – How Does it Change a Broadcaster’s EEO Obligations?

The FCC on Friday released a declaratory ruling making it significantly easier for broadcasters and MVPDs to meet their EEO obligations imposed by FCC rules.  These rules for broadcasters and MVPDs (cable and satellite TV providers) requires that these businesses, when filling job openings, widely disseminate information about the openings in a manner that is expected to reach members of all community groups in the area from which employees are likely to be found.  In the past, under the rules adopted in 2002, the Commission has not allowed recruitment to be conducted solely through online sources.  Instead, the 2002 order suggested that the daily newspaper would, in many communities, be an outlet that would reach the diverse groups within a community – though most broadcasters supplemented newspaper publication with notifications to numerous schools, community organizations, educational institutions and others who might possibly refer employee candidates.  Stations that relied solely on online sources faced substantial fines from the FCC (see the cases we summarized here and here).

The decision on Friday recognized that we are in a different world than when these rules were adopted almost 15 years ago.  Now, most recruiting is done online.  Thus, in response to a petition I filed on behalf of clients (summarized here), the FCC determined that a broadcaster or MVPD can rely solely on online sources in its recruiting.  It no longer needs to use the newspaper, reach out to community groups community groups or even use its own airwaves to give notice of job openings to satisfy the wide dissemination obligation.  The FCC encouraged stations to continue to use some of these outreach methods, but it is no longer required.  The broadcaster or MVPD needs to be reasonable in picking online sources that are likely to reach the members of various groups within its community – though the decision as to exactly which online employment sources to use will be left to the good-faith discretion of the broadcaster or MVPD.  The Commission went so far as to say that, depending on the circumstances, a single online source could reasonably be found to be sufficient.
Continue Reading FCC Finds Online Sources Satisfy EEO Requirements for Wide Dissemination of Job Openings by Broadcasters and MVPDs