Dates to Remember
October 30, 2026
All EAS Participants must file ETRS Form One.... Read More
All digital television stations – full power, Class A or LPTV — must file Form 317 with the FCC by December 1, 2015. Don’t remember what that form reports? Well, it requires a licensee to tell the FCC whether it transmitted any ancillary or supplementary services via its digital spectrum during the last 12 months […]
Read More →September 30, 2015: comments due on proposal to keep at least one TV channel post-auction vacant for white space devices and wireless microphones. October 1, 2015: AM & FM Stations in Florida, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands: if full-time employee threshold is met, complete EEO public file report and place same in public file as […]
Read More →While Congress considers passing legislation to continue funding government operations after September 30, government agencies have dusted off shutdown plans from the 2013 government shutdown so that they are ready in the event Congress cannot pass a continued funding resolution. The FCC issued their “Plan for Orderly Shutdown Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriations” on […]
Read More →Earlier this month, the FCC announced a 7-day shutdown of information systems for an information technology upgrade. That shutdown stretched to 10 days as the FCC found out it needed more time to reconnect its servers, which had been relocated off-site. Some systems came back into service earlier, but ones critical to broadcasters were not […]
Read More →Commercial broadcast stations may begin filing biennial ownership reports on October 1, 2015, and have until December 2, 2015 to complete all report filings. Information in the reports must be current as of at least October 1, 2015 (i.e., not earlier than that date). The FCC conducted a commercial station ownership report filing demonstration on […]
Read More →Sometime in October, we expect the FCC to take two important actions on the TV Incentive Auction front – publicly announcing the reverse auction opening bid prices for all broadcasters, and issuing an Application Procedures notice that will describe the nuts and bolts of the auction application process and post-auction procedures. This notice will have […]
Read More →A furious lobbying effort by those for and against an FM translator filing window opportunity limited to AM broadcasters has been unfolding in recent weeks at the FCC. Minority broadcasters are the latest to join in the fray, citing a desperate need for such a window to buttress and preserve broadcast ownership diversity. The AM-only […]
Read More →The FCC has acted on and adopted changes to the broadcast station contest rules, allowing publication of contest details online, with some restrictions or requirements. The full Report & Order can be found here, and the text of the new rule is included in the appendix. Broadcasters cannot start following the new rule yet though. […]
Read More →To improve safety to broadcasters and their employees, FCC Commissioner O’Reilly, in a post on the FCC’s official blog, has called for the FCC to adopt a rule change allowing broadcasters who post their public file online to no longer be required to make their facilities open to the public. Interestingly, O’Reilly’s proposal is not […]
Read More →The FCC has issued a $15,000 notice of apparent liability to an unlicensed radio station operating on 91.9 MHz in Passaic, New Jersey. The operator of the station had previously been warned by the FCC that the station was illegal (a lot of good that did). However, the FCC used that unheeded warning to increase […]
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