Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 1, 2016

FCC regulatory fees come around each year, and it seems like they always go up. This year is no different, as the FCC has asked for comments on its proposed fees to be paid later this year (probably in September), and the proposed fees go up significantly for broadcasters. The fees are meant to recoup the costs of the FCC’s regulation of the industries that it oversees.

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LegalTalkNetwork

JUNE 30, 2016

Landing in Orlando to catch an evening Uber to the hotel marked the beginning of our time with The Florida Bar at their 2016 annual convention. In true form to their association, I didn’t make it 20 feet inside the lobby before I was greeted by Florida public interest attorney Kimberly Sanchez. Despite over 100,000 plus members, it seems that the Florida lawyers all know each other by first name.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 30, 2016

While TV broadcasters can enjoy an incentive auction respite in July as attention shifts to the “forward auction” where we will see whether wireless carriers come up with enough money to fund the $86,422,558,704 (plus $1.75 billion for repacking costs, plus auction-related administrative costs) needed for the buyout of TV stations who agreed to surrender their spectrum , radio broadcasters will get some of their own attention as, at the end of the month, the second window for the filing of 250-m

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 29, 2016

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler this week released a “fact sheet” setting out a summary of the draft order now circulating among the FCC Commissioners for review and possible approval. This order, if adopted, would resolve the Quadrennial Review of the FCC’s ownership rules. As we wrote here , the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently pushed the FCC to quickly resolve this proceeding.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 24, 2016

Usually, on these pages, I’m trying to give my views on legal issues for media companies. Today, I’ll ask for your views on today’s news – as least as it affects media companies. We write extensively here about US music rights issues, and we have noted how US media companies with an online presence need to obtain international rights to their content before making it available on their websites , if those sites are not geo-blocked to prevent non-US access (see, for instance our articles here an

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 17, 2016

One week to go to the effective date for the online public inspection file for commercial radio stations in the Top 50 radio markets that are part of employment units with 5 or more full-time employees. Two weeks ago, I conducted a webinar for 19 state broadcast associations on what goes into that file (see our article here ), and last week the FCC did their own webinar about how broadcasters make the new cloud-based filing system work (see the archived webinar here ).

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 15, 2016

The FCC today released its most recent EEO audit letter for broadcasters – and it is a relatively brief list – just one page with 58 radio stations listed (compare this with the last audit that targeted about 280 radio and TV stations, see our article here ). The FCC’s public notice includes the audit letter that was sent to all of the targeted stations.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 12, 2016

Yesterday marked the 10 th anniversary of my first post welcoming readers to this Blog. I’d like to thank all of you who read the blog, and the many of you who have had nice words to say about its contents over the years. In the ten years that the blog has been active, our audience has grown dramatically. In fact, I’m amazed by all the different groups of readers – broadcasters and employees of digital media companies, attorneys and members of the financial community, journalists, regulators

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 10, 2016

From time to time, questions come up as to whether it is acceptable for broadcast stations to air ads from a political candidate which do not feature the voice or, for TV, the image, of the candidate. Ads from Federal candidates should almost never be missing the recognizable voice or image, as there are Federal Election Commission rules that specifically put the requirement on the candidate to appear on the spots in the “Stand By Your Ad” disclaimer (“I’m John Smith and I approved this message

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 9, 2016

In recent days, the press has been full of stories about Axl Rose from the band Guns N’ Roses sending take-down notices to websites, including Google affiliated sites, that feature a picture taken of him from one of his concerts making him look to be overweight (see, e.g. stories available here , here and here ). The photos are often accompanied by captions, reinterpreting Guns N’ Roses songs by modifying the lyrics to include references to food or overeating or otherwise making light of the pic

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 8, 2016

SoundExchange last week filed an appeal of the Copyright Royalty Board’s decision on webcasting royalties (a decision which we summarized here and here ), as reported by a number of trade press articles. Most of these press reports did not note that this was not the only appeal filed. At least two other parties, IBS (Intercollegiate Broadcasting System – representing college and high school broadcasters) and the NRB-NMLC (National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee – re

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 7, 2016

In the last few days, the trade press has been full of stories about a settlement of a lawsuit brought against a large broadcaster for alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). Given that the settlement was for $8.5 million , it has commanded lots of attention. While much of this attention seems to suggest that this is a new obligation, we wrote about this issue last year , warning broadcasters of the potential for big liability if they did not pay attention to the re

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 3, 2016

The online public inspection file for radio stations becomes a reality for most Top 50 market stations on June 24. Yesterday, I conducted a webinar for members of 19 state broadcast associations, discussing the process for the transition to the online public file. I also outlined obligations for maintaining the public file and the required contents of the file – what documents need to be included as well as the retention period for those documents.

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Broadcast Law Blog

JUNE 2, 2016

The question of whether state laws about pre-1972 sound recordings could give copyright holders a claim against broadcasters for the over-the-air public performance of these recordings was answered in a novel manner in a decision rendered by a US District Court in California. The evidence before the Court showed that CBS, the broadcaster being sued, had played digitally remastered versions of the pre-1972 songs, not the original analog pre-1972 recordings.

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LegalTalkNetwork

JUNE 1, 2016

We are excited to announce that Legal Talk Network Executive Producer Laurence Colletti has been selected as a panelist for one of the Legal Communicators Media Conference 2016 Media Panels. He is joined by four other media professionals. The Media Panel (Panel 7) will be from 10:45 a.m. to noon on Friday, June 17th, and includes Jessica Gresko, a reporter with The Associated Press, Anneliese Mahoney, lead editor for Law Street Media, and Tom Taylor, the news director for Bloomberg BNA, as well

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