- FCC Commissioner Simington and his Chief of Staff, Gavin Wax, published an article advocating for DOGE-style reform of the FCC.
PIRATE Act
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: December 11 to December 15, 2023
- The FCC adopted a Report and Order establishing rules implementing the January 2023 Low Power Protection Act, which provides
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: October 9 to October 13, 2023
- FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel announced that two Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRMs) have been drafted, which, if adopted by
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: July 17 to July 21, 2023
- Around this time of year, the FCC typically issues a Public Notice reminding TV broadcasters, cable operators, satellite television services,
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: March 13 to March 17, 2023
- On March 16, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) held an open meeting at which it voted to issue “6(b) orders”
Two Million Dollar Fine for Pirate Radio – Don’t Cross the Commission Again After You’ve Been Caught Once, Especially as More Enforcement Appears to be on the Way
This week, the FCC released two Notices of Apparent Liability proposing to impose big fines on two pirate radio operators. Using the enforcement tools – particularly the higher fines – authorized by the PIRATE Act passed by Congress in 2020, the FCC proposed a to impose a fine of $2,316,034 on one alleged operator of a pirate radio station in the New York City area, and a fine of $80,000 fine on another operator of a pirate station in Oregon. We’ve written in the past about the FCC sending warning letters to landowners and pirate radio operators threatening big fines if they don’t cease operations (or, for landowners, if they don’t force their tenants to cease illegal operations). But, as noted in the FCC’s Press Release, this is the first time since the adoption of the PIRATE Act that the FCC has gone beyond the warning phase to issue these notices of multimillion dollar “forfeitures” (fines) on pirate operators and, in the New York case, use the full force permitted by the law to levy the multimillion dollar fine. Theoretically, the alleged pirates could respond to the Notices and contest the fines, but the FCC’s decisions seem adamant that these operators should be paying a substantial penalty. It is probably no coincidence that these Notices were issued a little over a month after the FCC sent its annual report to Congress on its activities under the PIRATE Act, promising increased efforts to combat pirate radio in the new year.
The New York pirate appears particularly brazen, prompting the largest fine yet levied against a pirate radio operator. According to the Notice of Apparent Liability, two individuals have operated a pirate radio station in the New York borough of Queens for over a decade. In 2013, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued three Notices of Unauthorized Operation to the operators, warning them that their operations were illegal and needed to stop. In 2014, agents personally confronted one of the operators who admitted ownership of the equipment, and again told him to stop operating. When operations continued, a proposed fine of $20,000 was issued in 2015, but never paid or contested. In 2016, as operations had continued, Federal Marshalls seized the station’s equipment. Yet the pirate came back and continued operations – even using a website and social media to promote programs hosted by the two individuals named in this week’s Notice. The FCC emphasized that the repeated, ongoing nature of the violation even after multiple warnings and prior government action prompted its substantial fine. The PIRATE statute limits fines to $2,316,034 – otherwise, the FCC would have proposed a fine ten times larger, given the nature of the violation and the pirate’s apparent disregard of the FCC’s prior attempts to enforce the law.Continue Reading Two Million Dollar Fine for Pirate Radio – Don’t Cross the Commission Again After You’ve Been Caught Once, Especially as More Enforcement Appears to be on the Way
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: April 30, 2022 to May 6, 2022
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.
- Follow field testing by GeoBroadcast Solutions of its zonecasting system, the FCC opened a new comment period for interested parties
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Landowners Warned of Potential Liability of Up to $2,000,000 for Pirate Radio Operations on Their Property
The FCC yesterday made public four letters to landowners warning them that there were unlicensed FM radio operations coming from their properties and warning that, if the transmissions continued past the 10-business day response period, the landowners could be held liable for penalties up to $2,000,000 for the unlicensed operations coming from their properties. The…
April Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: License Renewal, Issues/Programs Lists, EEO, Webcasting Royalties and More
After a long winter, spring has finally arrived and has brought with it more daylight and warmer temperatures—two occurrences that do not necessarily pair well with keeping up with broadcast regulatory dates and deadlines. Here are some of the important dates coming in April. Be sure to consult with your FCC counsel on all other important dates applicable to your own operations.
On or before April 1, radio stations in Texas (including LPFM stations) and television stations in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee must file their license renewal applications through the FCC’s Licensing and Management System (LMS). Those stations must also file with the FCC a Broadcast EEO Program Report (Form 2100, Schedule 396).
Both radio and TV stations in the states listed above with April 1 renewal filing deadlines, as well as radio and TV stations in Delaware and Pennsylvania, if they are part of a station employment unit with 5 or more full-time employees (an employment unit is a station or a group of commonly controlled stations in the same market that share at least one employee), by April 1 must upload to their public file and post a link on their station website to their Annual EEO Public Inspection Report covering their hiring and employment outreach activities for the twelve months from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.
Continue Reading April Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters: License Renewal, Issues/Programs Lists, EEO, Webcasting Royalties and More
This Week in Broadcast Regulation: January 2, 2021 to January 8, 2021
Here are some of the regulatory developments 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. Also, we include a quick look at some important dates in the future.
- The Enforcement Bureau advised broadcasters (and other
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