Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 17, 2017

Last year, we posted some guidelines about engaging in or accepting advertising or promotions that directly or indirectly alludes to the Super Bowl without a license from the NFL. We are at that time of year again, so here is an updated version of our prior post. In addition to the monies it receives annually for the right to broadcast the Super Bowl, the NFL receives more than $1 billion in income from licensing the use of the SUPER BOWL trademark and logo.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 31, 2017

While there is a new administration in charge at the FCC, there are still those regular regulatory dates that broadcasters must face, as well as dates unique to pending proceedings that arise from time to time. Before we get to the February dates, we should remind broadcasters of those January 31 dates that they should be considering, including the deadline for signing up for the Interim License Agreement for those radio stations playing music represented by the new performing rights organizatio

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 30, 2017

There is a new FCC under the leadership of Chairman Ajit Pai, which now has to deal with the many legal issues facing broadcasters. While we try on this Blog to keep on top of these issues, we can’t always address everything that is happening. But we try to hit the highlights. Each quarter, my partner David O’Connor and I update a list of the legal and regulatory issues facing TV broadcasters.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 27, 2017

With the Super Bowl soon to kick off in Houston, the New York Times just ran a story ( here ) recalling that during the last Super Bowl held in Houston, the notorious “wardrobe malfunction” occurred. The article highlighted the NFL’s concerns since then in picking halftime performers. To readers of this blog, that incident raises a whole host of other issues, as it triggered a re-examination of the FCC’s indecency rules which, 13 years after the incident, does not appear to have any end in sigh

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 26, 2017

The Copyright Office is scheduled to publish in the Federal Register tomorrow an extension of time for parties who wish to comment on the Request for Additional Comments in its study of Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the “safe harbor” for those Internet Service Providers who host websites or run networks on which user-generated content is posted.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 25, 2017

This week, the appointment of Commissioner Ajit Pai as Chairman of the FCC became official. Since his appointment on Monday, he has released a list of acting bureau chiefs at the FCC ( here ), including naming Michelle Carey, a long-time FCC employee, as Acting Chief of the Media Bureau upon the departure of Bill Lake who held that position through Chairman Wheeler’s administration.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 18, 2017

Early this month, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it will be starting a new proceeding to set the royalty rates to be paid by “ business establishment services ” for the rights to make ephemeral copies of sound recordings. The rates will apply for the period 2019-2023. Interested parties must file a Petition to Participate by February 2 , along with a statement of their interest in the proceeding, and a check for $150 to cover filing fees.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 18, 2017

A bill was introduced in Congress this week (see press release here ) proposing to roll back the FCC’s requirement that noncommercial broadcasters, in connection with the Biennial Ownership Reports that are due by December 1 of this year, get an FCC Registration Number for every person who has an attributable interest in a noncommercial licensee. As we wrote here and here when the FCC adopted this requirement, and here when the FCC’s Media Bureau rejected reconsideration petitions just a few wee

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 12, 2017

Commercial radio broadcasters have been seeing numerous communications over the last week about Global Music Rights (GMR) and its seemingly contentious music royalty negotiations with the Radio Music License Committee (RMLC). Many stations are confused about this controversy and what it is all about. The 5 questions below, and the links at the end of the questions, try to shed some light on the issues.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 11, 2017

The FCC today announced that it is extending , by one week, the time in which to file comments on the Petitions for Reconsideration of the FCC’s decision on media ownership rules. The challenges, about which we wrote here , deal with issues including the local television ownership limits, the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules, the attribution for multiple ownership purposes of television stations subject to joint sales agreements, and the counting of radio stations in a local ownership c

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 9, 2017

At the beginning of each year, we publish our broadcaster’s calendar of important dates – setting out the many dates for which broadcasters should be on alert as this year progresses. The Broadcasters Calendar for 2017 is available here. The dates set out on the calendar include FCC filing deadlines and dates by which the FCC requires that certain documents be added to a station’s public file.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 4, 2017

In a decision released yesterday , the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling permitting certain identified foreign companies and individuals to own up to 40% of the voting interests in Univision, and allowed aggregate foreign ownership of up to 49% of the equity of the company. This decision noted that it was based not on the new rules for analyzing foreign ownership in broadcast stations approved by the Commission in late September (see our summary here ), as those rules were not yet effective as the

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 3, 2017

Here we are at the start of a new year, and right away we have numerous regulatory deadlines for broadcasters. By the 10 th of the month , all broadcast stations need to have placed in their public inspection files (online for TV and for those radio stations that have already converted to the online public file, and paper for the remaining radio stations), their Quarterly Issues Programs lists , documenting the issues of importance to their communities and the programs broadcast in the last quar

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 5, 2017

The FCC’s Media Bureau yesterday issued an order denying reconsideration of the full Commission decision from last year , synchronizing the Biennial Ownership Report filing requirement for noncommercial broadcasters with that of commercial broadcasters, and requiring that all individuals who have attributable interests in these stations obtain an FCC Registration Number (an “FRN”)(see our summary of the FCC order from last year here ).

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 11, 2017

The FCC yesterday released its tentative agenda for its January meeting , to be held on January 31. This will be the first meeting of the post-Chairman Wheeler era, and the two Republican commissioners will be in the majority for the first time in 8 years. There is a single item on the tentative agenda – the abolition of the requirement that broadcasters maintain a paper public file, open for public inspection, containing letters and emails from the public about station operations.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 9, 2017

Late Friday, the FCC’s Media Bureau issued an order (at this time available in Word format only, here ) clarifying its public file rules for political ads – both ads from candidates and from third-party groups. The FCC’s clarifications require broadcasters who run candidate or issue advertising to include information about not only the candidates mentioned in an ad, but also any Federal issues that the ad addresses.

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