NVBA News Archive

On Friday, the FCC released its first EEO audit notice for 2025 – and the first to be issued under the new administration at the FCC.  The FCC’s Public Notice, audit letter, and the list of the 400 radio and TV 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,

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 Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced that October 3 is the deadline for EAS Participants, including broadcasters, to file their annual Emergency Alert System Test Reporting System (ETRS) Form One – which provides information regarding EAS Participants’ EAS equipment and monitoring assignments along with other relevant data. 

Last week, as we noted in our last regular summary of the prior week’s regulatory activity, the FCC’s Media Bureau announced that it had waived the requirement for broadcasters to file their next Biennial Ownership Reports while the FCC considers whether to even continue to require the use of this form.  Ownership reports were set to be filed by December 1 of this 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.

• The FCC’s Media Bureau waived the requirement that broadcasters file their biennial ownership reports by December 1 of this year, postponing the filing deadline until June 1,

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, which will be paid 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.

• The FCC released the full text of its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking adopted at its regular monthly Open Meeting earlier this month proposing significant revisions to the FCC’s procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. 

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 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated the FCC’s decisions in the 2018 Quadrennial Review to retain the Top-4 Prohibition (prohibiting broadcasters from owning two of the top-4 affiliated TV stations in a DMA) and to close the “Note 11 loophole” to the TV ownership rule (adding LPTV stations and multicast streams to the prohibition on broadcasters acquiring another in-market station’s Top 4 network affiliation). 

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision this week on the appeals of the FCC’s December 2023 decision following its 2018 Quadrennial Review (see our summary here) to leave the local radio and television ownership rules largely unchanged.  The Court’s decision was a victory for television owners, declaring the restrictions on the ownership of two of the Top 4 TV stations in any market to be contrary to the record and ending that restriction unless,

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.

• FCC Chairman Carr announced the agenda for the Commission’s regular monthly open meeting scheduled for August 7, and it contains several items relevant to broadcasters. 

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 that comments and reply comments are due August 4 and August 22, respectively, responding to its Public Notice released last month seeking to refresh the record in the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule proceeding. 

The FCC this week announced a Consent Decree with a TEGNA subsidiary to settle an indecency complaint against a Spokane television station.  The FCC received a complaint about a “pornographic video” which the station admitted had run on a TV screen behind the station’s weathercaster that was visible to the home viewer for approximately 13 seconds during a weather report in 2021. 

Only three weeks ago, we published an article on the FCC’s request for public comment to update the record in the 2018 proceeding looking at whether to change the 39% national cap on the ownership of television stations. That request for comments was published in the Federal Register yesterday, setting the deadline for comments.