Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 26, 2010

With the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics less than 2 weeks away, and March Madness not far behind, we once again need to remind our readers that all three are trademarked terms, meaning that their use, particularly for commercial purposes, is limited. We've wrote here last year about the use of the term "Super Bowl" in commercials, and about the use of "Olympics" two years ago ( here ).

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 22, 2010

The Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , freeing corporations to use their corporate funds to take explicit positions on political campaigns, has been mostly analyzed by broadcast trade publications as a good thing - creating one more class of potential buyers for broadcaster's advertising time during the political season - which seems to almost be nonstop in these days of intense partisan battles in Washington and in the statehouses throughout the country.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 5, 2010

Last year’s Court of Appeals decision on Internet radio royalties for 2006-2010 remanded one issue to the Copyright Royalty Board for further consideration – the issue of the minimum annual fee to be paid by each webcaster. The Copyright Royalty Judges (“CRJs”) had decided on a $500 per channel minimum fee – a fee that created much concern in the Internet radio community as there was no clear delineation of what a channel was.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 29, 2010

This afternoon the Commission released an Order authorizing FM radio stations to increase power on their hybrid digital radio operations. This power increase is a welcome boost to HD radio operations and was eagerly awaited by many FM stations broadcasting in digital. In a nutshell, the rule change allows stations to increase from the current maximum permissible level of one percent of authorized analog effective radiated power (ERP) to a maximum of ten percent of authorized analog ERP.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 13, 2010

Each year poses a new set of regulatory deadlines, and to help you remember all of those deadlines, the Davis Wright Tremaine Broadcast Group has prepared a calendar setting out the dates that broadcasters need to remember in 2010. The calendar can be found here , and sets out FCC imposed deadlines for, among other things, Ownership Report filings (for noncommercial stations for now, until the status of the Form 323 for commercial stations is resolved), for quarterly issues programs lists , for

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 21, 2010

The FCC today launched a proceeding on the Future of Media in the digital age and put out a call for comments on a variety of issues. The goal of the Future of Media project, in the Commission's own words, is to produce a report to provide "a clear, precise assessment of the current media landscape, analyze policy options and, as appropriate, make policy recommendations to the FCC, other government entities, and other parties.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 19, 2010

At the end of 2009, we wrote about the interim royalties agreed to by both ASCAP and BMI , agreeing to reduce the amount of royalties paid by commercial radio stations by 7% until final royalties were agreed to by these Performing Rights Organizations and broadcast groups (principally the Radio Music Licensing Committee ), either through negotiations or by litigation.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 10, 2010

Many Webcasters who have elected the the royalty rates set by many of the settlement agreements entered into pursuant to the Webcasters Settlement Act must file an election notice with SoundExchange by January 31 to continue to be covered by those settlement agreements. These agreements were entered into by groups of webcasters and SoundExchange, and allow the webcasters to pay royalties at rates lower than those rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board for 2006-2010.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 20, 2010

In a recent decision , the FCC's Enforcement Bureau ruled that a tower owner should pay a fine for a single day where the required tower lights were not operational , and where no required monitoring of the tower to discover such outage was taking place. On top of the penalty for the non-working lights, the FCC also fined the owner for the failure to report a change in ownership of the tower.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 13, 2010

The earthquake in Haiti has caused many to look for ways to help - including broadcasters. While many broadcasters are already pitching in to do their part to aide relief efforts , noncommercial broadcasters are, in some cases, limited in what they can do. Noncommercial stations cannot raise funds , even for other noncommercial groups, if that fundraising "substantially alters or suspends regular programming" of the station.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 15, 2010

You've arrived here as the result of a broken link. The full article regarding the proposed revisions to the Emergency Alert System (EAS) posted on February 2, 2010 can be found here. We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for reading. Tags: Emergency Communications General FCC.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 14, 2010

David Oxenford today conducted a webinar for the Kansas Association of Broadcasters on the rules for political advertising. In addition to the elections for the US House of Representatives, Kansas has a race to fill a vacant US Senate seat, as well as elections for Governor and a whole host of state and local offices. With an August primary and the November general election, the 2010 election season could be a busy one in the state.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 15, 2010

A reminder that by February 1 noncommercial radio stations in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and New York , and noncommercial television stations in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma must prepare and file electronically a biennial Ownership Report with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) using the current noncommercial FCC Form 323-E.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 14, 2010

David Oxenford today conducted a webinar for the Kansas Association of Broadcasters on the rules for political advertising. In addition to the elections for the US House of Representatives, Kansas has a race to fill a vacant US Senate seat, as well as elections for Governor and a whole host of state and local offices. With an August primary and the November general election, the 2010 election season could be a busy one in the state.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 15, 2010

February 1st marks the deadline for two FCC EEO requirements. First, by February 1st, radio and television stations located in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma must prepare their Annual EEO Public File Reports. Specifically, stations or Station Employment Units (SEUs) in those states with five or more full time employees (30 hours or more per week) must: (1) prepare their Annual EEO Public File Report; (2) place it in the public inspection fil

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Broadcast Law Blog

JANUARY 28, 2010

Reading the trade press and the blogs, one would think that the Tim Tebow ad that will reportedly air during the Super Bowl presented novel, controversial legal issues. In fact, while we haven't seen the ad, from what we've read, there do not seem to be significant legal issues - most particularly ones that arise from an FCC perspective. The word is that this ad is pro-life, telling his mother's story of why she decided to have her child after a medical recommendation that she not, and how that

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