NVBA News Archive

We took last week off for the holidays and today bring you the regulatory developments of interest to broadcasters from the past two weeks, which we discuss below with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

• The Commission released a Report and Order requiring reporting by MVPDs of blackouts of their carriage of commercial television signals (including Class A and LPTV signals already on a system) that last more than 24 hours due to the failure of retransmission consent negotiations. 

2025 has begun – and everyone is speculating as to what the New Year will bring, particularly given the upcoming change in administration in the White House and at the FCC.  Yesterday, we published an article looking at some of the regulatory issues that we expect the FCC will address this year.  And we promised to let you know about some of the deadlines that are already on the 2025 calendar. 

It’s a new year, and as has been our custom at the beginning of each year, we dust off the crystal ball and take a look at what we think may be some of the significant regulatory and legislative issues that broadcasters will be facing in 2025.  This year, there is an extra layer of uncertainty given a new administration,

As 2024 comes to an end, 2025 is beginning to come into focus – a new year that will likely bring big changes to the Washington broadcast regulation scene with the inauguration of a new President and installation of a new FCC chair who has already promised to move forward with policies very different than those of the current administration (see our discussion here and here). 

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 failed to include the AM For Every Vehicle Act in their year-end omnibus spending legislation, meaning that the bill is dead for this Congress. 

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 December regular monthly Open Meeting, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to update several broadcast rules by making minor changes to its application processing procedures and by clarifying some ambiguous rule provisions. 

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 comments and reply comments are due December 13 and 18, respectively, in response to the National Association of Broadcasters’ request for an retroactive extension of the waiver of the FCC’s audio crawl rules,

For the last few years at this time of the year, we’ve departed from our usual coverage of legal and policy issues to talk about something else – broadcasters giving back.  With Giving Tuesday upon us, we wanted to urge our readers to consider ways to give back to our industry.  I guess it is now a tradition, so we’ll do it again this year and suggest some of the many ways we can express our thanks to the industry in which we work. 

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 Fifth Circuit announced that oral argument in the appeal of the FCC’s reinstatement of the FCC Form 395-B is “tentatively scheduled” for the week of February 3,

President-elect Trump this week selected sitting FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to be the new Chairman of the FCC starting on Inauguration Day, January 20.  As a sitting Commissioner, Carr can become permanent Chair immediately – no Senate confirmation is necessary.  Current FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced that, as is traditional, she will not only step down from her position as Chair on January 20 and will also leave the Commission on that date – leaving one empty seat on the FCC to be filled by the new President (to permanently fill that vacancy,  

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 are due January 13, 2025, in response to proposed community of license changes for several radio stations. 

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.

• On our Broadcast Law Blog, we reviewed  many of the broadcast issues pending before FCC that could be affected by the transition to Republican leadership as a result of the change in administration because of Tuesday’s presidential election.