This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters: September 10, 2022 to September 16, 2022

September 18, 2022

Listed below are a number of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the previous week, with hyperlinks to the place you’ll be able to go to seek out extra info as to how these actions could have an effect on your operations.

  • The FCC launched extra public notices in reference to the upcoming September 28 deadline for submission of annual regulatory charges. Particularly, the FCC issued a Public Discover setting out the procedures for paying the charges. The Discover addressed issues together with the required use of the CORES system and the permissible strategies of fee.  The FCC additionally introduced that broadcast licensees can lookup their Fiscal Yr (FY) 2022 regulatory charge quantities by logging onto the FCC’s web site at http://fccfees.com and clicking on the “View Payment Data and Exempt Standing for any Broadcast Property” hyperlink. In some cases, it might be essential to clear your browser earlier than logging onto the web site. After clicking on this hyperlink, licensees will be capable to view their charge quantities, charge codes, facility identification numbers, and different info pertinent to the submitting of their FY 2022 regulatory charges.  One other Public Discover introduced that, because it did for FY2020 and FY2021, it’s streamlining and easing its processes via which charge payors struggling pandemic-related monetary hardship could request and acquire waiver, deferral and installment fee reduction for FY 2022 regulatory charges.  Additional particulars about this course of, the required showings, and the proof that have to be submitted when requesting reduction are supplied within the Public Discover.  The FCC additionally issued a Reality Sheet offering details about these entities, together with noncommercial broadcasters, which might be exempt from fee of regulatory charges.
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau issued a choice by which it decided whether or not sure bills had been reimbursable to an FM station moved to a brand new channel to facilitate the improve of one other station. To make it doable to improve a station, one licensee can power one other station to alter channels if it reimburses the station that’s pressured to maneuver for the affordable bills of the transfer, and so long as the brand new channel is technically equal and might work on the station’s present transmitter web site.  Noting that the station searching for reimbursement bears the burden of proving whether or not an expense is official and prudent, and whether or not its value is cheap, the Bureau performed an in depth evaluation of the extent to which the station in query’s engineering and tools bills, authorized charges, printing bills, promotional bills (together with these for selling the station’s new frequency), and miscellaneous bills.  For additional particulars on how the Bureau resolved these issues, see the Bureau’s determination out there right here.
  • The Media Bureau issued a reminder that, as required beneath the John S. McCain Nationwide Protection Authorization Act for Fiscal Yr 2019 (“NDAA”), United States-based international media retailers offering video programming should submit by October 12 their subsequent semi-annual report disclosing their relationships with their international principals, together with an outline of the authorized construction of such relationships and any funding the retailers obtain from their international principals.  The reminder units out who is roofed by this requirement and the precise means for use by such retailers to supply these studies.
  • The FCC’s Media Bureau issued an Order granting the license renewal of an FM station is Arizona for just one 12 months, as a substitute of the traditional eight 12 months interval, as a result of the station had been silent for prolonged intervals. The Bureau discovered that the station was silent for 27% of its license time period and 33% of its prolonged time period (the license time period plus the interval after the license expired whereas the renewal was pending).  That is one other case the place the Bureau has concluded that it wants a shorter time period to evaluate whether or not the station will proceed to function and serve the general public, which it can’t do when silent.  For extra on the Media Bureau’s rising coverage on renewals for stations that had been silent for prolonged intervals, see our article
  • In a serious First Modification determination, the 5th Circuit Court docket of Appeals upheld a Texas regulation forbidding massive social media platforms from censoring speech based mostly on the viewpoints of the people posting on the positioning. The Court docket decided, amongst different issues, that regulating censorship shouldn’t be topic to the identical First Modification protections as regulating speech and that Texas was justified in concluding the platforms had been “frequent carriers” required to permit all folks to entry their companies with out discrimination.  This determination appears to contradict that of the 11th Circuit discovering an identical Florida statute to be unconstitutional (which we talked about in a previous weekly abstract right here). These contradictory holdings could properly result in the Supreme Court docket resolving the extent to which states can regulate the content material moderation insurance policies of tech platforms.
  • On our Broadcast Regulation Weblog, we wrote concerning the invoice launched in Congress by Senator Rand Paul to remove the FCC’s a number of possession guidelines that restrict the variety of broadcast stations that one firm can personal in any market. This invoice would additionally require that, in any antitrust evaluate of a broadcast merger, the reviewing authority acknowledge that tech corporations present lots of the similar companies as broadcasters and are more and more changing into opponents with broadcasters, and that the influence of any broadcast merger be assessed within the broader media market, somewhat than in isolation by wanting solely at broadcasting as a stand-alone market that’s immune from broader market competitors.
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