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While the regulatory deadlines in August may be a bit lighter than other months, there are still several important regulatory dates to keep track of, some of which are detailed below.  All broadcasters should have August 11 circled and highlighted on their calendars as the date of the next National EAS Test.  And there are renewal and EEO deadlines, as well as several comment dates on FCC regulatory proposals.

After skipping last year’s annual test due to the pandemic, FEMA and the FCC chose August 11 to hold this year’s National EAS Test.  All broadcasters should work with their engineers and technical staff to make sure their EAS equipment is operating properly and is set to monitoring the stations that they are required to monitor by their state EAS plan.  By the day after the test, August 12, broadcasters must file Form Two in the EAS Test Reporting System (ETRS) portal with “day of test” information.  Then, by September 27, broadcasters must file in ETRS Form Three with detailed post-test data.  The information shared with FEMA and the FCC allows them to determine the successes and failures of the test.
Continue Reading August Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: National EAS Test, License Renewals, EEO Reporting, Political Broadcasting Rules Proposals, Media Ownership Comments, Annual Regulatory Fees, and More

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

Last week, the FCC issued a Public Notice announcing an August 11, 2021 nationwide EAS test, with a backup date of August 25 if there are conditions that prevent the test from occurring on the initial date.  The test is scheduled for 2:20 PM EDT.  For broadcasters, this test will be conducted using 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 Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) released its long-awaited decision on streaming royalties for 2021-2025, finding that the rates applicable to

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Here are some of the regulatory and legal actions of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

  • FCC fines against two radio stations serve as a reminder that station managers need to pay close attention

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The FCC yesterday announced that the due dates for Biennial Ownership Reports, which had been December 1 of this year, will now be January 31, 2020. The Order announcing that action is available here.  The FCC notice says that this additional time is needed to make updates to the ownership forms in…

Last week, the FCC issued Public Notice reminding all broadcasters and other EAS participants of the obligation to file their ETRS Form Three report by September 23. That form provides details about a station’s participation in the August 7 Nationwide EAS Test (see our article here about the test and the required ETRS filings)…

With the summer winding down, you can expect that come September, like everywhere else, Washington will leap back to life and the government will try to accomplish what they can before the end of the year. That will no doubt mean some regulatory actions (and potentially court actions and legislative actions) affecting broadcasters this Fall, though what they are remains to be seen. In the meantime, there is plenty to keep broadcasters busy. While September is one of those months in which there are few of the normally recurring filing deadlines (no EEO reports, renewal filings or quarterly reports need to be submitted during the month), there is one big deadline that no commercial broadcaster should forget – the filing of annual regulatory fees.

We understand that there is an order circulating at the FCC right now to set the final amount of the regulatory fees for the year. As these fees must be paid before October 1 when the government’s new fiscal year begins, we can expect that order shortly, with fees due at some point in September. As the Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposed significant unexplained increases in the fees paid by radio, and a change to the methodology used to compete TV fees, moving from a DMA-based fee to one calculated based on an individual station’s predicted coverage (which had the effect of raising some fees, especially for high-powered VHF stations, while lowering others), a number of broadcasters and the NAB complained about those proposals. Watch for the FCC’s decision in the coming days to see how it addresses these complaints about the proposed fees, and to see when the fees will be due.
Continue Reading September Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Reg Fees, Children’s TV Rule Changes, EEO Comments, EAS Reports, License Renewal Obligations and More

Once upon a time, August was a quiet month in Washington, when everyone went on vacation. Sure, there are plenty of vacations that will happen this coming month, but it seems that regulatory activity no longer takes a break. For example, August 1 is the due date for the filing with the FCC of license renewals for all radio stations (including translators and LPFM stations) in North and South Carolina, and the filing of associated EEO forms for all full power radio stations in those states. With the renewal filing comes the obligation that these stations start airing, on August 1 and August 16, their post-filing announcements informing the public about the submission of the license renewal applications. Radio stations in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, who filed their renewals on or before June 2, also need to keep running their post-filing announcements on these same dates. Radio stations in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, who are in the next license renewal group with their renewal applications to be filed by October 1, need to start broadcasting their pre-filing announcements this month, also to run on the 1st and 16th of the month. See our post here on pre-filing announcements.

Commercial and noncommercial full power and Class A Television Stations and AM and FM radio stations in California, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin that are part of an employment unit with five or more full-time employees must place their annual EEO public inspection file reports in their online public file. Links to those reports should also be placed on the home pages of these station’s websites, if they have a website. The effectiveness of these EEO public file reports, and the EEO programs of which they are a part, are being reviewed by the FCC in a proceeding started by a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking about which we wrote here. Comments on this notice asking for suggestions about how to make the EEO rules more effective are due August 21, with reply comments due by September 5.
Continue Reading August Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – License Renewals, EEO, Music Consent Decree Comments, EAS Test, LPFM NPRM and More

Last year, as we wrote here, the FCC adopted a number of new rules regarding its emergency communications practices using the EAS system. At that time, soon after all the attention that had been given to the EAS alerts about the false Hawaii missile attack, the FCC adopted rules requiring stations to report to the FCC if they participated in an EAS alert about a fake emergency. Also, the FCC authorized EAS officials to conduct EAS tests using the real event codes for particular emergencies, but only after taking precautions to warn EAS-participating stations and the public that these tests were only tests, and not real emergencies. The effective dates of those new rules were put on hold pending review of the Office of Management and Budget under the Paperwork Reduction Act. According to a Federal Register publication this week, they have now been approved, and thus these rules are now in effect.

The FCC also approved a requirement for state emergency coordinators to file with the FCC in a new electronic database all Statewide EAS plans and any updates to those plans. The OMB also approved the data collection requirements of that rule but the rule will not become effective until one year after the FCC announces that it has created the electronic database to receive these updated plans. We recently noted that the FCC last month published links to statewide plans, and we urged state coordinating committees and participating broadcasters to review these plans to make sure that they have not become out of date with the passage of time. Given the upcoming new filing obligations, it would appear that this review is even more important.
Continue Reading Rules Requiring FCC Reporting of False EAS Alerts and Allowing Live Event Code Tests Become Effective