No, the FCC has not instituted an early-filing program so licensees can get that pesky license renewal out of the way. Instead, in 2010 it cleaned up television license renewal applications that had been hanging around since the last renewal cycle, issuing nearly $350,000.00 in children’s television fines to some…
The next Quarterly Issues/Programs List (“Quarterly List”) must be placed in stations’ local public inspection files by January 10, 2011, reflecting information for the months of October, November and December, 2010. Content of the Quarterly List The FCC requires each broadcast station to air a reasonable amount of programming responsive…
Given the many distractions during the holiday season, I thought it would be a good idea to remind readers that January 10 represents a busy quarterly deadline for all radio and television stations. Below is a brief summary of the deadlines, as well as links to our Client Alerts describing…
Below is the text of our 2011 Broadcasters’ Calendar, which lists deadlines that broadcasters should be aware of for 2011. If you would prefer to read the PDF version of the calendar, it can be found here. Items of Note in 2011 1. Applications for Renewal of License: June 1,…
In the heat of the battle raging over carriage of various Fox networks on Cablevision’s systems, Randy May, the founder and chief intellect of the Free State Foundation, has weighed in on the retransmission consent debate (available here). I read his comments with interest, because Randy often provides insightful observations…
Last week, Congress passed the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (the “Act”) which, among other things, reinstates the FCC’s former Video Description rules for television broadcasters, extends closed captioning of video programming to the Internet, and requires the FCC to examine methods of increasing the accessibility…
September 2010 The next Quarterly Issues/Programs List (“Quarterly List”) must be placed in stations’ local public inspection files by October 10, 2010, reflecting information for the months of July, August and September, 2010. Content of the Quarterly List The FCC requires each broadcast station to air a reasonable amount of…
In light of today’s decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit invalidating the FCC’s indecency policy, it would be hard to justify writing about anything else. From my first days as a young lawyer screening programs before they were aired (I still remember assessing the legalities…
If you are a Fox affiliate, your fax machine (if you still have one) probably has a message on it from the FCC waiting for you, courtesy of the latest struggle between Fox and the FCC over indecency enforcement. In a Notice of Apparent Liability released today, the FCC states…
While the FCC has traditionally steered clear of copyright issues, that has grown more difficult as the preferred method of content protection shifts from court actions to copyright protection built into the hardware. The FCC therefore found itself in the middle when Hollywood insisted that cable and satellite set-top boxes…