Dates to Remember
September 2024
All commercial broadcast stations (unless exemp... Read More
September 2024 All commercial broadcast stations (unless exempt) will have to pay annual regulatory fees once the FCC issues the order and related public notices. Typically, the deadline to pay falls in the last third of the month. Failure to timely pay regulatory fees results in an automatic fine equal to 25% of the owed […]
Read More →As of publication time, the FCC had still not issued its Report & Order adopting annual regulatory fee amounts and setting deadlines for stations to remit those fees. We anticipate that Order sometime next week, with a likely deadline in the last third of the month for remitting fees. The FCC does not send notices […]
Read More →The FCC has issued a public notice announcing October 4, 2024 as the deadline for all EAS participants to complete and file Form One in the EAS Test Reporting System, which can be accessed here. Filers can complete this requirement by updating previously filed forms using the “My Filings” menu option and then selecting the […]
Read More →The FCC has officially announced that broadcasters will not have to file the new EEO Form 395-B form by this September 30. The notice confirms that the form was only to be filed after a Media Bureau public notice was published announcing the filing requirement, and since that notice has not issued, no filing will […]
Read More →The FCC received a significant number of Class A television, LPTV and TV translator major modification applications on August 20th, the first date that the television freeze was lifted for such filings. As of publication time, most of those had been accepted for filing and are awaiting FCC staff determination as to whether the changes […]
Read More →August 1, 2024 Radio and TV Stations located in Illinois, Wisconsin, California, North Carolina and South Carolina: if five (5) full time employee threshold is met, prepare EEO public file report covering the period from August 1, 2023 – July 31, 2024, upload it to the station online public inspection file and post it on […]
Read More →In a long-awaited decision that followed a 2022 effort to impose new foreign sponsorship identification requirements on broadcasters, and a legal challenge that followed it, the FCC has now issued a Report & Order that amends and clarifies the existing rules. One clarification related to short-form advertising was not contemplated by the FCC in its […]
Read More →Sixteen years ago, the FCC adopted a rule prohibiting stations from discriminating in advertising contracts on the basis of race or ethnicity, requiring that ad contracts contain nondiscrimination clauses. At the time, the Commission had become aware that certain advertising sales practices on commercial stations allowed advertisers to prohibit their ads from airing on stations […]
Read More →The FCC’s Order reinstating the EEO Form 395-B filing requirement for broadcasters became effective June 3, 2024, but the Media Bureau has not yet issued the public notice announcing that stations must file the form by September 30th of this year. Given the status of legal challenges to the new mandate and that the form […]
Read More →There’s been plenty to write about in the first half of 2024 when it comes to broadcast regulation. From the ordinary to the new, here’s what to look for in the second half of 2024. On the “ordinary” side, it is quite possible that there will be a scheduled National EAS test this fall where […]
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