The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today issued a decision vacating the FCC rule effectively banning television Joint Sales Agreements (“JSAs”) and threatened to throw out all of the FCC’s remaining broadcast ownership rules if the FCC does not complete its required “quadrennial” review of those rules by…
June 1, 2016 is the deadline for broadcast stations licensed to communities in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming to place their Annual EEO Public File Report in their public inspection file and post the report on their…
May 2016 Noncommercial radio stations licensed to communities in Michigan and Ohio and noncommercial television stations licensed to communities in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming must electronically file their Biennial Ownership Reports by June 1, 2016. Licensees must file…
Television broadcasters have had to comply with an online Public Inspection File requirement since 2012. This past January, the FCC announced that it would expand the online Public File requirement to certain broadcast radio, satellite radio, cable system, and DBS operators. Today, the FCC released a Public Notice announcing the…
March 2016 The next Children’s Television Programming Report must be filed with the FCC and placed in stations’ public inspection files by April 11, 2016, reflecting programming aired during the months of January, February, and March 2016. Statutory and Regulatory Requirements As a result of the Children’s Television Act of…
Consumer protection is always in style at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC”). When 50 fashion “influencers” flooded Instagram, all wearing the same dress in photos tagged “@lordandtaylor”, and an article featuring the same dress appeared in the online fashion magazine Nylon, some at the FTC suspected an advertising campaign masquerading…
It’s not just high school seniors who should be waiting by the mailbox for a thick package to arrive this coming week. All television stations that filed a Form 177 application in Auction 1001 should be looking for their Second Confidential Status Letter between today and March 22nd. The FCC…
Today, the FCC posted to the Auction 1001 website the Reverse Auction Initial Commitment User Guide and Online Tutorial. Broadcasters that submitted an FCC Form 177 to participate in the Reverse Auction should review these materials to gain a better understanding of how the system will work so that they…
The FCC’s new Licensee-Conducted Contest Rule became effective this past Friday. Under the new rule, a broadcast licensee conducting a contest still has the obligation to disclose the material terms of the contest “fully and accurately” and to conduct the contest substantially as announced. However, as we wrote last September, the…
Despite a three-hour delayed opening of the federal government courtesy of the aftermath of Winter Storm Jonas, the FCC, in today’s Open Meeting, adopted rules requiring that radio broadcast stations, as well as satellite radio (i.e., Sirius/XM), direct broadcast satellite providers (i.e., DirecTV and DISH), and most cable television systems, migrate…