Though school may be letting out for many, the FCC does not take a summer recess. Instead, regulation continues. Perhaps most importantly, Chairman Carr will have a Republican majority on the FCC for the first time since the change in administration, as Democratic Commissioner Starks has said that he is leaving the Commission before its June meeting. See our article from earlier in the week for our views on some of the issues that may be prioritized once the Chairman’s majority is in place. In addition, there are some routine deadlines – including EEO filing deadlines for broadcasters in several states across the country and deadlines for comments or reply comments in a number of rulemaking proceedings. And there are political windows that open in June, principally for elections that will occur in August.
June 2 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming with five or more full-time employees to upload their Annual EEO Public File Report to their stations’ Online Public Inspection Files. A station employment unit is a station or cluster of commonly controlled stations serving the same general geographic area having at least one common employee. For employment units with five or more full-time employees, the annual report covers hiring and employment outreach activities for the prior year. A link to the uploaded report must also be included on the home page of each station’s website, if the station has a website. Be timely getting these reports into your station’s OPIF, as even a single late report can lead to FCC fines (see our article here about a recent $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).
The filing of the Annual EEO Public File Reports by radio station employment units with eleven or more full-time employees, or TV stations with five or more employees, triggers a Mid-Term EEO Review that analyzes the last two Annual Reports for compliance with the FCC’s EEO requirements. The Mid-Term EEO Review begins on June 2 for TV station employment units inMichigan and Ohio. Radio station employment units in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming with 11 or more fulltime employees are also subject to this review. Radio stations located in those states that are part of station employment units with five or more full-time employees must also indicate in their OPIFs whether their employment unit has eleven or more full-time employees, using a checkbox now included in the OPIF’s EEO folder. This allows the FCC to determine which station groups need a Mid-Term EEO Review. See our articles here and here on radio stations’ Mid-Term EEO Review reporting requirements.
Looking at rulemaking comments, June 2 is the deadline for comments responding to HC2 Broadcasting Holdings, Inc.’s petition for rulemaking proposing that LPTV stations be permitted to operate on a voluntary basis using the 5G Broadcast transmission standard as an alternative to the ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 transmission standards. According to the Petition, this standard can be received by certain compatible mobile devices and can offer services including enhanced programming, datacasting, and other digital connectivity. While the Petition proposes that 5G Broadcast LPTV stations be required to provide at least one free-to-air video signal, the Petition also asks if the time has come when LPTV stations should be freed from any requirements to offer broadcast programming so that their entire spectrum can be used for datacasting purposes. Reply comments are due July 1.
June 6 is the deadline for reply comments responding to the NAB’s petition for rulemaking asking for a hard deadline for full-power TV stations to complete the transition to the new ATSC 3.0 transmission standard. The NAB proposes that the transition occur in two phases: TV stations in the top 55 markets would be required to transition by February 2028; and TV stations in remaining markets would have a transition deadline of February 2030. The NAB asks for several rule changes to assist with the transition, including requiring that new TV sets sold after February 2028 be ATSC 3.0-compatible, and updating the MVPD carriage rules to reflect the proposed transition deadlines. The NAB also proposes that the FCC eliminate the “substantially similar” requirement (requiring that stations’ ATSC 3.0 principal broadcast stream replicate their ATSC 1.0 broadcast) earlier than the current July 17, 2027 sunset date. Comments were due by May 7 (see our discussion here).
June 6 is also the deadline for reply comments responding to the NAB-led Future of Television Initiative Report, released in January, detailing the findings of a process initiated by the NAB and FCC to bring together stakeholders from across the TV industry (including consumer advocates) to make recommendations for the successful deployment of the ATSC 3.0 standard (see our discussion here). Comments were due May 7.
Broadcasters located in Alabama, Delaware, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington should also be aware of the opening of the following political windows tied to state and local elections occurring in June and August – meaning that Lowest Unit Rates apply to sales to candidates and their authorized committees (see our article here on the basics of computing LUR). Our articles on April and May regulatory dates listed other LUR windows that have already opened for elections to be held in June and July, including the primaries for the New Jersey governor’s race, the primary for NY City mayor, and Virigina primaries for state legislative and executive positions. The new windows first opening in June are as follows:
| LUR DATE | STATE/ TERRITORY | ELECTION DATE | ELECTION TYPE |
| June 3, 2025 | Delaware | August 2, 2025 | Municipal Elections – Fenwick and Bowers |
| June 4, 2025 | Mississippi | June 24, 2025 | General Election Runoff* |
| June 6, 2025 | Alabama | August 5, 2025 | Municipal Election – Dothan |
| Tennessee | August 5, 2025 | Municipal Elections – Cowan and Estill Springs | |
| June 8, 2025 | Tennessee | August 7, 2025 | Municipal Elections – Decherd, Huntland, Nashville, and Winchester |
| June 10, 2025 | Delaware | August 9, 2025 | Municipal Election – Rehoboth |
| June 13, 2025 | Minnesota | August 12, 2025 | Special Election |
| June 21, 2025 | Washington | August 5, 2025 | Primary Election |
| June 27, 2025 | Alabama | August 26, 2025 | Municipal Elections – All Alabama municipalities without elections earlier this year (Includes City of Auburn, Bessemer, Birmingham, Gadsden, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Mountain Brook, Scottsboro, and Talladega) |
| Oregon | August 26, 2025 | Special Election | |
| June 28, 2025 | Minnesota | August 12, 2025 | Special/Primary Election |
* Will be held if there are races in which no one receives a majority of the vote in the June 3, 2025 elections.
As a refresher, in the 45 days before a primary election, and 60 days before a general or special election, broadcasters must extend to legally qualified candidates their lowest unit rate for the same class of advertising time and continue to follow all other applicable political broadcasting rules. For a deeper dive on how to prepare for the 2025 elections, see our post here, which also includes a link to our comprehensive Political Broadcasting Guide. Also, take a look at our 2025 Broadcasters’ Calendar to see if your state has any upcoming primary, general, or special election (and be sure to confirm all these dates locally as some dates have changed since the calendar was prepared).
Looking ahead to July, all full-power radio and TV stations, plus Class A TV stations, both commercial and noncommercial, should upload to their OPIF by July 10 their Quarterly Issues/Program lists for the second quarter of 2025. The lists should identify the issues of importance to the station’s community and the programs that the station aired between April 1 and June 30, 2025 that addressed those issues. It is important that these be timely uploaded to your public file, as the untimely uploads of these documents probably have resulted in more fines in the last decade than for any other violation of the FCC’s rules. As you finalize your lists, do so carefully and accurately, as they are the only official records of how your station is serving the public and addressing the needs and interests of its community. See our article here for more on the importance that the FCC has in the past placed on the Quarterly Issues/Programs list obligation.
We’ll have more July regulatory dates at the end of June. As always, consult your own legal and technical advisors for other dates of importance that might apply to your stations in the upcoming month.
