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.
- Olivia Trusty was sworn in as an FCC Commissioner, restoring the Commission’s quorum just before its regular monthly Open Meeting. With there now being a 2-1 Republican majority, many believe that the Commission will move forward with Chairman Carr’s deregulatory agenda. In the Press Conference following Thursday’s open meeting, Carr promised that the FCC would have a very busy July and August. The release of a request to refresh the record on the television national ownership caps the day after Trusty was confirmed (an FCC release which we wrote about on our Broadcast Law Blog this week) may signal the start of proceedings impacting broadcasters.
- The NAB announced that a majority of the members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate are now co-sponsoring the AM for Every Vehicle Act (see our article here for more details on that Act). While a majority of Congress has now committed to vote for the legislation protecting AM radio in cars, Congressional leadership must schedule the bill for debate and a vote before the requirements can become law.
- The FCC’s Enforcement and Media Bureaus entered into a Consent Decree with Sinclair Broadcast Group to resolve investigations arising from the Media Bureau’s review of its stations’ license renewal applications, including whether some of its stations failed to timely upload Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists and commercial limits certifications to their Online Public Inspection Files and whether it failed to timely file the renewal for one of its TV translators. Also resolved were claims that one of Sinclair’s TV stations failed to comply with the FCC’s closed captioning rules. In addition, the Consent Decree settled a September 2024 Forfeiture Order initially imposing a $2,652,000 penalty against Sinclair as well as penalties against several other broadcasters (who were not a party to the Consent Decree and remain subject to the order) for exceeding the limits on commercialization in programming directed to children ages 12 or under (a decision we noted here). While the Consent Decree does not require Sinclair to admit that it violated the FCC rules, Sinclair must pay a $500,000 civil penalty and enter into a compliance plan to ensure that future FCC rule violations do not occur.
- The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an Opinion rejecting a claim that the FCC had erred in concluding that only Low Power Television stations in DMAs with fewer than 95,000 households were eligible to file for Class A status under the Low Power Protection Act passed by Congress in 2023 (we noted the FCC decision on the limits of the Act here). Class A status gives an LPTV station protection against interference from new or improved full-power stations and from any future repacking of the TV spectrum. The Court rejected arguments of the petitioner, including the argument that the household limit was meant to apply to an LPTV station’s community of license not its DMA, finding that the FCC’s reading of the statutory language was the correct one.
- The FCC announced that comments and reply comments are due July 23 and August 22, respectively, in response to its April Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing updates to its foreign ownership rules adopted under Section 310(b) of the Communications Act and applicable to many FCC licensees, including broadcasters. Section 310(b) prohibits foreign entities, individuals, and governments from holding ownership interests of more than 20% in an FCC licensee and ownership interests of more than 25% in a U.S. entity that directly or indirectly controls an FCC licensee. FCC licensees, however, can ask the FCC to approve foreign ownership interests above the 25% threshold. The NPRM proposes the adoption of rules detailing many of the policies that the FCC has adopted for dealing with such requests. We initially noted the adoption of the NPRM here.
- Twenty-three state attorneys general filed a joint amicus brief supporting PBS and NPR’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s Executive Order ending federal subsidies for NPR and PBS provided through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The attorneys general note that Congress established the CPB through the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, for the express purpose of maintaining a public broadcasting system free from government influence and intrusion, and they argue that the Executive Order is unconstitutional for violating the First Amendment and conflicting with Congress’ authority to decide whether and how to fund public media through its power of the purse. They further note the importance of NPR and PBS’s services to their local communities, including their provision of emergency and public announcements and educational programming. They conclude by stating that losing public media would erode public trust and leave many American communities in the dark.
- At its Open Meeting, the FCC adopted a Report and Order proposing to streamline its cable rate regulations, many of which are now obsolete or unworkable due to the end of most cable rate regulation years ago. The full text of the decision of the FCC is available here.
- The Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Illegal Pirate Radio Broadcasting to an owner and a property manager of a property in the Bronx, New York for allegedly allowing a pirate to broadcast from the property. The Bureau warned the landowner and the property manager that the FCC may issue a fine of up to $2,453,218 under the PIRATE Radio Act if either of them continue to permit pirate radio broadcasting from the property.
- The FCC released a Small Entity Compliance Guide regarding compliance with its amended rules permitting digital FM radio broadcast stations to initiate asymmetric sideband operations. As we noted here, the FCC released a Report and Order in September 2024 permitting digital FM radio stations to operate at different power levels on their upper and lower digital sidebands. In that Order, the FCC said that to initiate operations with asymmetric sidebands, a notification of digital FM operations would have to be made using the Form 335-FM. As we noted here, FCC’s Media Bureau announced that May 23 was the effective date of the FCC’s rules adopted in the Order, and the Form 335-FM could now be filed as its use had been approved by the Office of Management and Budget.
- The Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with a South Carolina LPTV station which, due to an administrative oversight, failed to timely file a license application before its construction permit expired and then operated without a valid authorization for nearly four years. The Consent Decree requires that the station pay a civil penalty of $13,000.
On our Broadcast Law Blog, we discussed upcoming regulatory deadlines in July affecting broadcasters. These include Quarterly Issues Programs lists for all full-power stations, due in public inspection files by July 10, as well as comments in several FCC proceedings.
As next week is a short week, given the July 4th Holiday on Friday, depending on the activity that takes place, we may take next weekend off. So, if you don’t see an update next weekend, we will be back with a summary of the regulatory activity in the intervening two weeks on July 13.