national ownership cap on television

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Last week, the FCC released its order eliminating the UHF discount. Under this discount, a TV broadcaster, in determining its compliance with the national ownership limit prohibiting any owner from having attributable interests in stations serving more than 39% of the nationwide television audience, would include in its count only one-half of the audience of any market served by a UHF station. This discount originated in the analog world, when UHF stations tended to have smaller audiences as their signals were harder to receive, and yet their operational costs were higher. Three years ago, the FCC proposed to eliminate the discount, as the technical inferiority of UHF stations no longer exists in the digital world (see our post here describing the FCC’s proposed action). This decision, reached in a 3 to 2 vote of the Commissioners, will put several broadcast groups over the national cap, while others will come close to it, limiting their ability to expand into new markets. Did the video distribution marketplace demand this action?

In fact, the Commission’s majority decision really did not examine in any detail the public interest factors justifying this action. Instead, the FCC focused almost totally on the fact that, in the digital world, UHF stations were no longer technically inferior. That was essentially stipulated by all parties, and the Commission viewed the decision as simply being one that was necessary to keep up with technology – as UHF stations were no longer inferior to VHF stations, there was no reason to give owners of these stations a discount in computing compliance with the national ownership limits. The Commission also pointed to the fact that, in the days before the digital transition, it had warned TV broadcasters that an end to the UHF discount was coming. But changes in the media marketplace in the 15 years since many of these statements were made, with the rise of multichannel video program providers and over-the-top television services like Netflix that were not even imagined 15 years ago, are given only a passing reference, as pointed out by the dissenting Republican commissioners.
Continue Reading Eliminating the UHF Discount and Limiting the National Ownership Reach of Television Groups Without Reviewing the Media Marketplace

While the trade press has been full of reports that the FCC has voted on an order addressing the issues raised in its Quadrennial Review of its multiple ownership rules, and that the decision largely left those rules unchanged (including the broad ban on the cross-ownership of daily newspapers and broadcast stations), no final decision on the review has yet been released. However, we did see on Friday that, in the FCC’s list of matters pending before the Commission for approval “on circulation” (i.e. to be voted on without being considered at an FCC open meeting) the ownership item was removed from the list of pending items, seemingly confirming that the decision has in fact been voted on and is thus no longer circulating for approval. If the press reports are to be believed, there has been no major change in the rules despite much last minute hope for some relaxation of the newspaper cross-interest rule. The rules are thus likely to be those indicated by the Chairman in his blog post in late June, which we summarized here. Even if the most significant rules (e.g. local ownership rules for radio and TV – the “duopoly” rules, and the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules) remain unchanged, that does not mean that the broadcast community should ignore the upcoming decision, as there are bound to be other issues addressed in the order that may be of significance.

In connection with the newspaper cross-ownership rules, while the press reports indicate that the rules will remain in place, there are reports that there will be some sort of waiver allowed, seemingly where economics justify the combination. If this is akin to the “failing station” waiver used to justify the ownership of 2 TV stations in markets where such ownership would normally not be allowed, some have wondered, given the economic state of the newspaper industry, if such a waiver would ever be used as it will be a rare case where a last-minute broadcast combination will rescue a failing newspaper. But we will need to see what the details are of the waiver standard to be applied.
Continue Reading Preparing for the FCC’s Soon to be Released Decision on Changes to its Multiple Ownership Rules

September is one of the few months without a due date for the standard regulatory filings – no renewals, EEO public file reports, and no Quarterly Issues Programs Lists or Children’s Television Reports. Instead, the big filing this month is one that applies to all commercial broadcasters (and most entities regulated by the FCC in other services as well) – the annual regulatory fees due on September 20. We wrote about the deadline here (with links to the FCC webpage on which you can look up your fees), and the amounts of the fees by category of broadcaster, here. But just because there are no other regular filings due at the FCC does not mean that those in charge of regulatory compliance at your stations can take the month off once they have paid the fees.

No, there are plenty of other deadlines to which broadcasters should pay attention. Those who filed license renewal applications for radio stations in California and for TV stations in Illinois and Wisconsin should be running their post-filing license renewal announcements on the 1st and the 16th of the month. The next round of license renewals will be filed on October 1, and stations in the states where those renewals are due should be running the third and fourth of their pre-filing renewal announcements on the 1st and 16th. That would be TV stations in Iowa and Missouri, and radio stations in Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, American Samoa, Guam, the Mariana Islands, and Saipan.Continue Reading September Regulatory Deadlines for Broadcasters – “Reg” Fees and Renewal Notices, With More Action to Come In October