Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
- The Radio Music License Committee announced settlements with both ASCAP and BMI of rate court litigation over the royalties to be paid these organizations by commercial radio companies for the public performance of musical works. The rates for both will be increasing, though the ASCAP rates have not been made public. BMI rates will increase from approximately 1.7% of revenue to 2.2%. The settlements are retroactive to 2022, with the BMI agreement providing that commercial radio stations will, beginning in October, need to make payments over 18 months to account for the rates agreed to for 2022, 2023, and 2024, which exceeded the carry-over interim rates for those years that have been paid by radio operators. For more on these settlements, see our Broadcast Law Blog article here.
- The FCC each week updates its list of “items on circulation,” i.e., orders that have been drafted by the FCC staff and are under review by the FCC Commissioners. One of the items added to the list this week is an Order on the annual Regulatory Fees. This means that we should see details of those fees as soon as the Commissioners can review and vote on the proposed order. These fees must be paid prior to the October 1 start of the federal government’s fiscal year, so expect this order and subsequent notices about payment deadlines to be released in the next few weeks.
- The FCC announced that comments and reply comments are due September 18 and October 3, respectively, on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing significant revisions to the FCC’s procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. The proposed changes are aimed at streamlining the process for determining if constructing communications facilities, including broadcast towers, will affect the environment and historical sites.
- The FCC announced that comments are due September 9 responding to its Direct Final Rule repealing 98 broadcast rules that it identified in the Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding as obsolete, outdated, or unnecessary. The deleted rules will become effective on October 20 unless substantive comments against the deletions are filed, in which case the FCC will provide additional notice of the changes and ask for and consider public comment before the deletions take effect. The deleted rules include over-the-air subscription TV approval procedures, the requirement that radio and TV stations be equipped with specific instruments for determining station power levels, several international broadcast station technical requirements, rules requiring specific station operating power calculation methods, and certain rules that simply provide references to FCC policies (the underlying policies are not affected by the deletion of these references).
- The FCC’s Media Bureau released an Order deleting certain cable and satellite rules which were vacated by two court decisions issued more than a decade ago: the FCC’s former temporary standstill rule for program carriage complaint proceedings that was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2013, and the FCC’s former limits on cable and satellite providers using encoding to prevent or limit copying of their programming that was vacated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003. The Bureau deleted these vacated rules to further the FCC’s goal in the Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding of removing rules that “no longer have any operative effect.” Unlike the FCC’s procedures in “direct final rule” proceedings, the Bureau stated that these rule eliminations were not subject to any form of public comment because it merely eliminated rules lacking any legal effect as the courts had vacated them.
- The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit filed by SGCI Holdings III LLC, the Standard General company that sought to acquire the TEGNA television stations, and its managing member Soohyung Kim, against the FCC, former FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel and former FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer, broadcast station owner Byron Allen and his company (an allegedly unsuccessful bidder for the TEGNA stations), and a number of other individuals and groups including parties who argued before the FCC against the approval of the transaction, alleging that they conspired to cause the FCC to “pocket veto” the transaction by designating it for hearing for discriminatory reasons because Mr. Kim was not the “right type of minority” (we wrote about the hearing designation here). The Court found that the First Amendment protected most of the comments made before the FCC arguing against the approval of the deal, and it further concluded that the plaintiff had not shown evidence of racial discrimination.
- The FCC, through publication in the Federal Register, announced that comments are due October 20 in response to the following proposed radio station community of license changes: KTSN(AM), from Lockhart, Texas, to San Leanna, Texas (proposal here); WQVR(AM), from Webster, Massachusetts, to Paxton, Massachusetts (here); WRHC(AM), from Coral Gables, Florida, to Doral, Florida (here); KPYG(FM), from Cayucos, California, to Santa Margarita, California (here); KWWV(FM), from Santa Margarita, California, to Cayucos, California (here); and KILX(FM), from De Queen, Arizona, to Lockesburg, Arizona (here).
- The Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with a North Carolina LPFM station for violating the FCC’s assignment and transfer of control rules. The Bureau found the station’s former and current licensees entered into an affiliate agreement where the station’s current licensee ceded complete control over the station’s programming to its former licensee, allowing the station’s former licensee to regain control of the station without prior FCC approval. The Consent Decree requires that the station pay a $2,000 voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury and to implement a compliance plan to ensure compliance with the FCC’s assignment and transfer rules. The Bureau will also grant the station’s license renewal application, but only for a 1-year term so that it can ensure the station’s continued compliance with the rules.
- Democratic politicians sought information as to whether President Trump unlawfully influenced the FCC’s approval of the Paramount-Skydance Media merger last month (we noted the approval here):
- Congressmen Pallone (D-NJ) and Raskin (D-MD) sent Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison a letter requesting information on recent reports and statements by President Trump that the company offered to provide the President with free access to $15 to $20 million worth of public service announcements on CBS stations in exchange for approval of the merger, as well as on Paramount’s $16 million settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS (which we noted here), changes to CBS polices that align with the Trump Administration’s political agenda, its ending initiatives aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and its promises to eliminate “perceived bias” in its reporting. Pallone and Raskin state that these actions, if done to curry favor with the President to receive FCC approval, would violate federal and state anti-bribery statutes.
- Senator Schiff (D-CA) sent FCC Chairman Carr a letter requesting information on the role President Trump may have played in influencing the FCC’s approval of the merger referencing FCC news releases indicating that the merger’s approval was conditioned on Skydance’s efforts to “eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination” – statements which Schiff maintains suggest an active and unlawful effort by the FCC to shape the company’s future programming content in alignment with President Trump’s earlier criticisms of Paramount. Schiff requests that Carr provide information on communications between the White House and the FCC on conditions for approving the merger. Schiff also requests information on Carr and Ellison’s meeting just a week before the FCC approved the merger, including whether the meeting included discussions regarding the need for the company to make programming, editorial commitments, or content oversight concessions in exchange for the merger’s approval.
With the upcoming long Labor Day weekend, depending on the news in the next week, we may not publish this weekly update next week, but instead be back with our next update in two weeks. However, in the interim, watch this Blog for announcements on the FCC’s annual regulatory fees.
