September 2013 Pillsbury’s communications lawyers have published FCC Enforcement Monitor monthly since 1999 to inform our clients of notable FCC enforcement actions against FCC license holders and others. This month’s issue includes: FCC Assesses Substantial Fine for Antenna Lighting Outage Big Fines for Children’s Television Violations Failure to Monitor Antenna…
One of the perennial challenges of being a broadcaster is determining what you can air, when you can air it, and how it must be aired without incurring the wrath of the federal government. While the FCC tends to be the federal agency most commonly encountered on content issues, various…
Today’s exploration in vocabulary: INTRANSIGENT: characterized by refusal to compromise or to abandon an extreme position or attitude : uncompromising < intransigent in their opposition> < an intransigent attitude> (from Merriam-Webster.com). RETRANSIGENT: characterized by an insistent belief that negotiations which inevitably result in a signed retransmission agreement with less than…
When CBS and Time Warner announced Monday they had ended their month-long standoff over retransmission of CBS programming on Time Warner cable systems, the announcement brought a sigh of relief from Time Warner subscribers, particularly the NFL fans among them, and the usual press statements putting each party’s best spin…
August 2013 Pillsbury’s communications lawyers have published FCC Enforcement Monitor monthly since 1999 to inform our clients of notable FCC enforcement actions against FCC license holders and others. This month’s issue includes: FCC Catches GPS Jammer at Airport $75,000 Consent Decree Adopted for Class A TV Violations Jamming Device in…
A few moments ago, on its own motion, the FCC released an Order extending the 2013 deadline for commercial radio and television stations (including Class A and LPTV stations) to file their biennial ownership reports with the FCC. The reports, which are normally due on November 1 of odd-numbered years,…
In a decision that disappointed but didn’t entirely surprise broadcasters, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today declined to rehear in banc its earlier decision rejecting a request by broadcasters to terminate with extreme prejudice Aereo’s broadcast subscription service in New York. Today’s announcement was not a…
June 2013 Pillsbury’s communications lawyers have published FCC Enforcement Monitor monthly since 1999 to inform our clients of notable FCC enforcement actions against FCC license holders and others. This month’s issue includes: FCC Issues Heavy Fines for Late-Filed Children’s Television Programming Reports Motel with Multichannel Video Programming Distribution System Is…
We now know what the per-subscriber fee for cable systems lacking retransmission agreements with local broadcast stations is, and it isn’t “free”. Section 76.64 of the FCC’s Rules requires cable systems to have a written retransmission agreement in place before retransmitting the signal of a station that elected retransmission consent…
In what has been a recurring theme at CommLawCenter, I’ve written about the FCC rule prohibiting the airing of Emergency Alert System codes and tones unless there is an actual emergency or EAS test. Despite the rule, the draw of using an EAS tone is apparently irresistible, and we’ve seen…