The Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) and the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) have announced that a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System (“EAS”) will take place on October 4, 2023, at 2:20 pm EDT. As we previously reported, EAS participants, with limited exceptions, should have already filed their ETRS Form 1 providing the FCC...… Continue Reading
The House Subcommittee on Communications & Technology on Wednesday, May 24th unanimously advanced a bill to renew the Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”) authority to auction commercial airwaves and use the proceeds to pay for both next generation 911 and the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. The bipartisan 50-0 vote comes after the FCC’s...… Continue Reading
June 1 Annual EEO Public Inspection File Report – Broadcasters with Station Employment Units comprised of radio and/or television stations with five or more full-time employees licensed to communities in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, or Wyoming must upload to the stations’ respective Online...… Continue Reading
At the FCC Commissioners’ meeting on March 16, the FCC imposed new STIR/SHAKEN and robocall mitigation requirements on all providers, including intermediate providers and regardless of their STIR/SHAKEN implementation status. All providers are now required to take “reasonable steps” to mitigate illegal robocall traffic and must submit a certification and mitigation plan to the Commission’s...… Continue Reading
March 31 Supply Chain Annual Report – Providers of advanced communications services that purchased, rented, leased, or otherwise obtained covered communications equipment and services on the Covered List in 2022 must submit an annual report on or before March 31, 2023 covering information as of December 31, 2022. The current version of the Covered List...… Continue Reading
January 10, 2023 Issues/Programs Lists – For all commercial and noncommercial radio, television, and Class A television stations, listings of each station’s most significant treatment of community issues during the fourth quarter of 2022 (October, November, December) must be placed in the station’s OPIF. The lists should include brief narratives describing the issues covered and the...… Continue Reading
This is the Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth FCC Deadlines Alert System. The FCC advised today that parties subject to the Emergency Alert System (EAS) rules (radio and television stations, wired and wireless cable television systems, digital broadcast systems, digital television broadcast stations, Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service, digital cable and digital audio broadcasting systems, and...… Continue Reading
In the latest salvo of the back and forth fight over requiring broadcasters to verify foreign governmental sponsorship of programming, on October 6, 2022, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “Commission”) released a Second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“Second NPRM”). The Second NPRM comes as a response to this summer’s unanimous D.C. Circuit opinion vacating...… Continue Reading