- The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Communications & Technology Subcommittee held an FCC oversight hearing. The hearing featured written
public interest standard for broadcasters
This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: October 27, 2025 to October 31, 2025
- Although the federal government shutdown continues for its fifth week, and most FCC employees are not working, the Commission, as
Court Finds FCC Has No Authority to Require EEO Form 395-B – And Narrows Scope of the Public Interest Standard
The FCC’s 2024 decision to reinstate Form 395-B, after its use had been paused for over 20 years, was invalidated this week by a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In yet another instance of courts limiting the authority of administrative agencies, the Fifth Circuit judges found that the FCC has no statutory authority to require the filing and public posting of the form requiring broadcasters to report on the race and gender of all of their employees. In reaching this decision, the Court made clear that the FCC’s authority to regulate “in the public interest” is not an authority that is unlimited, but instead is one that must be grounded in specific duties that the FCC has been given by Congress in the Communications Act. The Commission cannot impose obligations on broadcasters under the public interest standard simply because a majority of the Commissioners believe that new rules would somehow make broadcast service better – they can only act in areas that Congress specifically said that they can act. That aspect of the Court’s decision may have a significant impact in assessing the validity of current and future obligations imposed by the FCC on broadcasters.
The FCC’s decision to reinstate the Form 395-B was very controversial. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the FCC’s EEO policies were twice struck down by the courts as unconstitutional as they forced hiring based on racial or gender. The Form 395-B provided the information used by the FCC to make the decisions that the courts found to be discriminatory. Given the form’s direct relationship with the FCC actions that had been found unconstitutional, after these court decisions, the FCC suspended the use of the form. Continue Reading Court Finds FCC Has No Authority to Require EEO Form 395-B – And Narrows Scope of the Public Interest Standard
Looking Into the Crystal Ball – What Legal and Policy Issues are Ahead for Broadcasters in 2025?
By David Oxenford on
Posted in AM Radio, Assignments and Transfers, Broadcast Auctions, Broadcast Performance Royalty, Cable Carriage, Digital Television, EEO Compliance/Diversity, FM Radio, FM Translators and LPFM, General FCC, Intellectual Property, Internet Video, Multiple Ownership Rules, Music Rights, On Line Media, Payola and Sponsorship Identification, Programming Regulations, Public Interest Obligations/Localism, Television
It’s a new year, and as has been our custom at the beginning of each year, we dust off the crystal ball and take a look at what we think may be some of the significant regulatory and legislative issues that broadcasters will be facing in 2025. This year, there is an extra layer of uncertainty given a new administration, both in the White House and at the FCC. Already, it appears that a new administration will bring new priorities – some barely on the radar in past years – to the top of the list of the issues that broadcasters will need to be carefully monitoring.
One of those issues has been a possible FCC review of the meaning of the “public interest” standard under which all broadcasters are governed. As we wrote when President-Elect Trump announced his pick for the new FCC Chair starting on Inauguration Day, Chair-Designate Brendan Carr has indicated that this public interest proceeding will be a high priority. In his opinion, broadcasters, or perhaps more specifically the news media, have suffered from an erosion of trust, and it has been his expressed opinion that a reexamination of the public interest standard might help to restore public trust. We noted in our article upon his selection that this is not the first time that there has been a re-examination of that standard. It has traditionally been difficult to precisely define what the standard means. In the coming days, we will be writing more about this issue. But suffice it to say that we are hopeful that any new examination does not lead to more paperwork obligations for broadcasters, as seemingly occurred whenever any broadcast issue was addressed by the current administration. As we note below, there are several paperwork burdens that we think may disappear in the new administration, so we are not expecting more paper – but we will all need to be carefully watching what develops from any re-examination of the public interest standard.Continue Reading Looking Into the Crystal Ball – What Legal and Policy Issues are Ahead for Broadcasters in 2025?