From Broadcast Law Blog

The FCC last week released its first EEO audit notice for 2024.  The FCC’s Public Notice, audit letter, and the list of stations selected for audit is available here.  Those stations, and the station employment units (commonly owned or controlled stations serving the same area sharing at least one employee) with which they are associated, must provide to the FCC (by uploading the information to their online public inspection file) their last two years of EEO Annual Public File reports,

In October 2022, I noted in an article that many broadcasters were totally confused by the FCC’s rules requiring that they seek certifications as to whether or not a foreign government is behind anyone buying programming time on a broadcast station.  In our 2022 article, we noted that, even though broadcasters did not fully understand the existing rule,

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 held its March regular monthly open meeting and adopted two items of interest:
  • A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in which the FCC proposes a new Emergency Alert System alert code for missing and endangered adults to be used by EAS participants,

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.

• Last week, we noted that petitions for review of the FCC’s December 2023 Report and Order which concluded its 2018 Quadrennial Regulatory Review of the local broadcast ownership rules,

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.

• Congress passed, and the President signed, a continuing resolution to extend funding for the Federal government, including the FCC, averting a partial government shutdown. 

While there are a number of regulatory deadlines scheduled for broadcasters in the month of March, there is also the potential for some of those to shift if we have a federal government shutdown.  As of the date of the publication of this article, we do not know if a federal government shutdown will occur this month, with the FCC and FTC currently being funded only through March 8. 

When you have been representing broadcasters in Washington for as long as I have, you see cycles in regulation of the industry.  I was reminded of how long the FCC has been on a deregulatory cycle in reading today’s Washington Post obituary of former Democratic FCC Chair Charlie Ferris, who headed the FCC many decades ago when I interned there and when I later started to work in private practice representing broadcasters. 

On February 22, the FCC released an Order reinstating the requirement for radio and television broadcasters, commercial and noncommercial, to annually file an FCC Form 395-B.  All station employment groups with 5 or more full-time employees would need to classify all station employees, both full-time and part-time, by race or ethnicity and gender, as well as by the type of job they perform at the station (see the most current version of the form here). 

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from this 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 March 18 is the effective date of the rules adopted in its December 2023 Report and Order concluding its 2018 Quadrennial Review of its broadcast ownership rules. 

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 removed from its list of tentative written decisions circulating among the Commissioners for review and approval an item addressing the EEO rules for broadcasters and cable companies. 

Last week, when the NFL playoffs and upcoming Super Bowl had everyone thinking football, Congress held a hearing on how streaming media has affected sports and other video programming rights.  We noted that hearing in our weekly update this weekend.  As we said in our update, the hearing touched on all the video media issues of the day – sports rights,

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 announced the circulation for Commissioner review and approval of two decisions of interest to broadcasters, signifying that we may soon see FCC action on these matters:
  • FCC Commissioners Carr and Starks released a joint statement supporting FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s action circulating an order resolving the FCC’s long-pending proceeding about whether to authorize “zonecasting” or “geo-targeting” for FM stations.