Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

The full decision of the Copyright Royalty Board on Internet Radio royalties, excluding confidential information , has now been made public and is available here. In December, we wrote about the rates and terms of the royalties that webcasters pay to SoundExchange for the public performance of sound recordings as set by the CRB decision, and about some of the ramifications of that decision for various classes of webcasters.

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LawActually

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

Any ideas? Because I haven’t a clue. Wikipedia says the following: The information superhighway or infobahn was a popular term used through the 1990s to refer to digital communication systems and the Internet telecommunications network. It is associated with United States Senator and later Vice-President Al Gore. Urban Dictionary gives a hypothetical example of the term being used in speech: "I just spent the afternoon cruising the Information Superhighway!

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

The text of the Copyright Royalty Board decision on Internet Radio Royalties for 2026-2020 was released last Friday. While it is 203 pages long, the basis for the decision is relatively simple. As required by the Copyright Act, the Copyright Royalty Judges looked at all of the evidence presented to determine what rate a willing buyer and a willing seller would agree to in a marketplace transaction.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 20, 2016

Broadcasters, like other federally regulated industries, continue to be leery about advertising for marijuana, even in states where cannabis dispensaries have been legalized for medical or even recreational use. This week, the NY Times ran an article about companies trying to provide ways for dispensaries to use electronic payment systems, as federally regulated banks and credit card companies often refuse to deal with these businesses.

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Attorney

Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

According to Politico , Ted Cruz’ campaign has demanded that TV stations pull certain PAC ads which he claims distort his voting record on immigration issues. This kind of claim from a political candidate about the unfairness of attack ads is common. Here, Cruz’ representatives apparently don’t threaten lawsuits against the stations for running the ads, but suggest that it is a violation of the stations’ FCC obligations to operate in the public interest to continue to run the ads.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 28, 2016

March appears to be another busy month on the FCC’s regulatory calendar. While March is one of those months where there is not the usual assortment of EEO public file reports, quarterly issues programs lists or children’s television reports and noncommercial ownership report obligations (see our Broadcasters’ Regulatory Calendar here for some of these dates), it is a month with many other significant regulatory dates.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

The FCC yesterday released a Public Notice dealing with the upcoming March 29 commitment deadline for TV broadcasters who filed their applications back in January indicating a possible intent to participate in the incentive auction to surrender their TV channel so that the FCC can use it to repack the TV band to free spectrum to sell to wireless broadband users.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 25, 2016

The FCC today issued a Public Notice announcing its first EEO audit for 2016. Letters to about 280 radio and television stations went out on February 24 asking for evidence of their compliance with the FCC’s EEO rules. In today’s notice, the FCC released the form audit letter and list of stations that will be audited. Responses from the audited stations are due to be filed at the FCC by April 11.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

In Washington DC this week, many in the communications world are commemorating the 20 th anniversary of the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Five years ago, we noted the changes that the Act made in the broadcast regulatory world – changes that are still being debated 20 years later. To show how little things change, I thought that I would republish the article that I wrote 5 years ago.

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Finance

Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

In a Public Notice released yesterday, the FCC announced that all Form 398 Annual Children’s Television Programming Reports , which report on the amount of educational and informational programming directed to children was broadcast by any TV station in the prior quarter, need to be filed in the FCC’s new Licensing and Management System (LMS). The FCC is migrating all TV broadcast filings to this new system, and the next Form 398, due by April 10 to report on programming broadcast by stations in

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

In an order released last month which has not received much attention, the FCC clarified its requirements for the filing of Biennial Ownership Reports. Much of the order deals with fixes to the report itself that will, for the most part, make the completion of the report administratively easier in terms of the physical data that needs to be entered into the form.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 6, 2016

In a decision released earlier this week , the FCC dismissed an application for a new noncommercial FM station based on a change in the majority of the applicant’s board of directors within a one-year period after the application was filed. The change was deemed a major change in ownership, which the FCC rules says requires the assignment of a new file number – essentially meaning that the application is treated as a new application received after the filing window for the new FM stations was c

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Last week, we wrote about the FCC’s decision to require that radio stations move their public inspection files online. Stations with 5 or more full-time employees that are located in Top 50 markets need to make the transition to the online file later this year once the FCC gets its new rules approved by the Office of Management and Budget following a Paperwork Reduction Act review.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

It’s February, and we’re back to the normal cycle of FCC filings. Due to be placed in the public files of radio and TV stations with 5 or more full-time employees are EEO Public Inspection File Reports for radio and TV stations in the following states: Arkansas , Kansas , Louisiana , Mississippi , Nebraska , New Jersey , New York , and Oklahoma. Radio stations with more than 10 full-time employees licensed in the states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi also have an obligation to file an EE

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