It is time for our look at September’s regulatory dates and deadlines to which broadcasters should be paying attention, and the deadline that probably is most important to all commercial broadcasters is not yet known.  That, of course, is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees, which must be made before the federal government’s October 1 start of the new fiscal year.  The FCC on Friday announced the amount of those fees, and we expect that this coming week, the payment window will be set, and the FCC will issue fee filing guides for all the industries regulated by the FCC – including a Media Bureau filing guide for broadcasters.  Stay alert for those announcements. 

Later in the month is the filing window for broadcasters to submit their Auction 114 “short-form” construction permit applications necessary to participate in the action of 132 construction permits for new FM stations, (see the list of available channels here).  The filing window opens at 12:00 p.m. ET on September 14 and closes at 6:00 p.m. ET on September 30.  Bidding is scheduled to begin on February 2, 2027.  These “short-form” applications on FCC Form 175 are necessary to participate in the auction.  Among the information required from an applicant in the Form 175 is the identification of which of the 132 vacant allotments they intend to bid on, any bidding credits for which they may be eligible, and certain ownership information.  Applicants may also specify specific coordinates for tower sites that an applicant plans to use for any channel to protect that site from being precluded by subsequent applications by other FM stations.  For more on the process, see our article here and the FCC’s instructions for auction participation here.  In addition, the FCC just released a Small Entity Compliance Guide summarizing the requirements and procedures for the upcoming Auction.