From Broadcast Law Blog

It seems like virtually every panel at every broadcast and media convention, at some point, ends up involving a discussion of Artificial Intelligence. Sessions on AI are filled to capacity, and sessions unrelated to the topic seem to have to mention AI to appear relevant.  Whenever there is a topic that so thoroughly takes over the conversation in the industry,

On Friday, the FCC released a Public Notice confirming that the Form 395-B, reimposed by the FCC earlier this year (and the subject of several appeals), will not be due September 30, 2024, as we speculated earlier last week in our look ahead at September regulatory dates.  The Form 395-B is designed to collect information about the race,

It is time for our update on the coming month’s regulatory dates and deadlines to which broadcasters should be paying attention – and the deadline that probably is most important to all commercial broadcasters is not yet known.  That, of course, is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees – which must be made before the federal government’s October 1 start of the new fiscal year. 

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

• The FCC announced that oppositions are due August 27 in response to the National Association of Broadcasters’ petition for reconsideration of the FCC’s June decision to reinstate the rule prohibiting programming duplication by commonly owned or operated commercial FM stations serving the same area. 

With a number of upcoming regulatory deadlines approaching, including regulatory fees that will likely be announced in the next two weeks with a payment deadline before October 1, we thought that this would be a good time to remind broadcasters of EAS filing obligation that they may have missed as there has not been the widespread publicity that comes with the announcement of a Nationwide EAS test. 

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this 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 Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced that October 4 is the deadline for EAS Participants to file their annual Emergency Alert System Test Reporting System (ETRS) Form One – which requires EAS Participants,

The agenda for the Federal Election Commission’s August 15 Open Meeting was released last week, and it contains a proposed Notification of Disposition of the FEC’s review of a July 2023 petition for rulemaking filed by the advocacy group Public Citizen seeking to initiate a proceeding to address the use of Artificial Intelligence in campaign communications. 

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this 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 Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced that October 4 is the deadline for EAS Participants to file their annual Emergency Alert System Test Reporting System (ETRS) Form One – which requires EAS Participants,

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

• Some of the big news for broadcasters this week came not from the FCC, but from the Federal Trade Commission:
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Last week, as we noted in our monthly look ahead at the regulatory dates of importance to broadcasters in August, the reinstatement of the rule prohibiting the duplication of programming on FM stations went into effect.  The FCC Order reinstating the rule is interesting both for its substance, and for the parties pushing for that reinstatement – principally representatives of the music industry. 

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

• Through a Federal Register publication, the FCC announced comment dates on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing that broadcasters and cable operators be required to disclose,

The FCC last week issued a Declaratory Ruling approving the acquisition by a company owned by a Canadian citizen of 100% of the ownership interest in a company that owns an AM radio stations in Seattle.  Until about a decade ago, a 25% limit in the parent company of an FCC broadcast licensee would have been the limit allowed by the FCC under Section imposed on foreign ownership of a US broadcast station by Section 310(b)(4) of the Communications Act.