last in first out policies

March is one of those rare months on the broadcast calendar when there are few routine regulatory deadlines for broadcasters. As we are winding down in the television license renewal cycle, the month’s only license renewal obligations for TV broadcasters are the pre-filing license renewal announcements on the 1st and 16th of the month for stations in Delaware and Pennsylvania, whose renewals are due on April 1, and the post-filing announcements for TV stations in New York and New Jersey. But there are still dates of interest to broadcasters in the month ahead. Here are some of those dates.

March also brings the obligation, by March 16 for TV stations to be in compliance with the Closed Captioning Quality Standards, which require that broadcasts assess and work to perfect the quality of the closed captioning carried on their stations. While the FCC is looking at bringing television program suppliers under these rules, as of now, the obligation for compliance with the rules is on the television broadcaster. We wrote about the captioning quality rules and the FCC’s recent proceeding to shift some of the burden to program suppliers here.
Continue Reading March Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Closed Captioning Quality Standards Effective Date, Comments on Online Public File, MVPD Status for Online Video Providers, LIFO for Political Ads, and FRNs for Biennial Ownership Reports

In a Public Notice issued yesterday, the FCC asked for comments from the public on whether broadcast stations should be able to enforce “Last In, First Out” (“LIFO”) pricing against political candidates in election races.  During the 45 days before a primary election or the 60 days before a general election, for advertising buys by a political candidate’s authorized campaign committee, a station cannot charge more than the lowest price charged to the station’s best commercial advertiser for that same class of advertising time.   What the Commission asks in its Public Notice is whether the practice of stations of deciding that particular classes of advertising time are effectively sold out discriminates against candidates – as candidates routinely buy their advertising time late in an election cycle.  These issues come up often, particularly late in any political window as demands on the advertising inventory of stations can become very tight as an election approaches.

So what does this petition ask?  First, let’s take a step back and look at how lowest unit charges work in broadcast (and cable) political advertising.  An easy example would be where a candidate wants to buy a fixed position advertisement on a radio station during its morning drive program.  For that ad, a candidate can be charged no more than the lowest price that the station charged to any commercial advertiser for a similar fixed-position spot that runs in that same time period.  Different classes of time have different lowest unit rates.  That means that, in that same morning drive program, there might be a lowest rate for these fixed position adverting spots that are guaranteed to run at the time that they are scheduled, but a lower price for spots that can be preempted by higher priced spots.  If there are different make-good rights associated with a class of preemptible time (e.g. one type of spot must be “made-good” by the station within a week if it is preempted, while another might just need to be made-good within the next month), both of those classes could have different lowest rates.  See more about lowest unit rate here and here
Continue Reading Comments Sought by FCC on Political Broadcasting Lowest Unit Rate Implications of Last In First Out Pricing