From Broadcast Law Blog

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 FCC’s Enforcement Bureau released an EEO Audit Notice targeting 400 radio and TV stations for review of their EEO programs. 

Two weeks ago, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit heard an oral argument on the challenge by a number of Democratic candidates to the FCC Media Bureau’s March Public Notice which purported to “remind” broadcasters of their obligations to give Lowest Unit Rates not only to ads purchased by political candidates and their own campaign committees but also to Joint Fundraising Committees and Political Party ads when those ads are authorized by a candidate. 

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 FCC’s Media Bureau issued an Order that dismissed a petition for reconsideration of its March Public Notice purporting to remind broadcasters about their lowest unit charge (LUC) obligations for political ads – a Public Notice that had for the first time extended the LUC obligation to joint fundraising committees and ad buys by political parties that are coordinated with the party’s federal candidates. 

In May, the FCC announced that it would be conducting an auction in February 2027 for construction permits to build over 130 new FM stations in various locations around the country (see our article here). Last week, the FCC issued a Public Notice that provided the remaining details about the auction, including a September filing window for “short-form” applications to participate in the auction,

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 FCC’s Order adopted in June that requires broadcasters to quickly adopt new security practices to protect their EAS systems was published in the Federal Register,

In early July, we wrote about the FCC’s decision to require that all broadcasters take measures to secure their EAS operations – and in the process secure their entire program chain – to make sure that malicious actors can’t hack into their systems and send false alerts.  The FCC today published in the Federal Register the order making those changes,

Although many, including Congress, take the last of their summer vacations in August, there are still many dates to which broadcasters should be paying attention this month.  One deadline that most commercial broadcasters should be anticipating is the FCC’s Order that will set the amount of their Annual Regulatory Fees.  Payment of those fees will be due sometime in September before the October 1 start of the federal government’s new fiscal year.  

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.

• At its regular monthly Open Meeting, the FCC adopted a Report and Order, Order of Proposed Modification, and Order on Reconsideration which reconfigures the Upper C-band (3.7-4.2 GHz) for terrestrial wireless use. 

This week, there was a report in the broadcast trade press about a lawsuit filed against a North Dakota radio station for allegedly posting on its Facebook page a copyrighted photograph of a well-known rock musician– without getting permission from the professional photographer who took that picture and owned the copyright.  This was not a situation where some listener posted a picture on the station’s site,

Last week, the FCC released a draft Report and Order which, if adopted at its August regular monthly open meeting, will repeal the 39% cap that currently limits the nationwide reach of local television station owners.  That cap prohibits one owner from having interests in TV stations reaching more than 39% of the nation’s TV households.  Computation of the 39% reach assumes that any TV station in a Nielsen TV market reaches all of the TV households in that market. 

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 FCC released a draft Report and Order, which if adopted at its August 6 regular monthly Open Meeting, would repeal the 39% national TV ownership cap. 

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 FCC’s Media Bureau announced that the upcoming new noncommercial educational FM translator reserved band (88.1-91.9 MHz) filing window has been moved from August to November to accommodate applicants affiliated with schools on summer holidays and other noncommercial companies who argued that an August window did not give them enough time to prepare their applications.