FCC Extends Comment Deadlines for FCC Foreign Sponsorship ID Rule Second Rulemaking

The FCC has extended the comment and reply comment deadlines in its Second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to further amend the Foreign Sponsorship Identification Rule.  Comments must now be filed by January 9, 2023, with reply comments due January 24, 2023.

The new rulemaking aims to specify exactly how a station must perform its foreign entity diligence by mandating that the station obtain a signature from the programmer certifying to a series of precisely worded statements specified in the new rule.  Under the proposed new rule, for every lease of airtime where the signed questionnaire is obtained, a station would have to upload it,along with the airtime lease agreement, into the station public file.  If a programmer won’t provide the signature, the FCC wants to know and has proposed that the station email the FCC to report the non-signature.  As an alternative, the FCC proposes a possible checking of the federal foreign entity/agent databases by the programmer itself and a follow-on certification, a work-around to what the DC Circuit prohibited the FCC from requiring stations to do in a decision earlier this year.