Positioning Navigation and Timing

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While May is one of those months that does not have any routine, scheduled FCC filing deadlines, there are still a number of regulatory dates and deadlines that are worthy of note for broadcasters.  As detailed below, this includes comment deadlines in several FCC rulemaking proceedings, the effective date of the FCC’s application fee increases (including fees for broadcast station applications), the deadline for LPTV to Class A conversion applications, and the tentative deadline for TV stations to begin complying with the FCC’s audible crawl rule if it is not extended again.  As always, remember to keep in touch with your legal and regulatory advisors to make sure that you don’t overlook any other regulatory deadlines we may have missed here or ones that are specific to your station.

One May date with potential broad interest is May 23 – the effective date of the FCC’s January Order increasing its application fees by an average of more than 17%, including those for broadcast station applications, to reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index.  We previously provided more details on our Broadcast Law Blog on the increases and suggested that, where possible (e.g., in connection with internal company reorganizations or for planned technical changes), broadcasters file applications as soon as possible to beat the implementation of these increased fees.Continue Reading May 2025 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – Comment Deadlines on ATSC 3.0 and EAS, Application Fee Increases, Audible Crawl Rule, Political File Windows, and More

April brings a number of routine regulatory dates for broadcasters across the country, including the requirement for posting Quarterly Issues Programs Lists to full-power station’s online public inspection files.  April also brings comment deadlines in several rulemaking proceedings including one in which many broadcasters are interested – the FCC’s “Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding looking to eliminate unnecessary broadcast regulations.  Finally, we note lowest unit rate windows that open this month, including one for primaries in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, one of the more significant “off-year” elections in 2025.  We look in more detail at some of the most significant deadlines below. 

April 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas with five or more full-time employees to upload their Annual EEO Public File Report to their stations’ Online Public Inspection Files.  A station employment unit is a station or cluster of commonly controlled stations serving the same general geographic area having at least one common employee.  For employment units with five or more full-time employees, the annual report covers hiring and employment outreach activities for the prior year.  A link to the uploaded report must also be included on the home page of each station’s website, if the station has a website.  Be timely getting these reports into your station’s OPIF, as even a single late report has in the past led to FCC fines (see our article here about a recent $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).Continue Reading April 2025 Regulatory Updates for Broadcasters – Annual EEO Public File Reports, Comment Deadlines, Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists, Political Windows, and more