Last week, the US House of Representatives passed the MORE Act which, if enacted, would take marijuana off the list of Schedule I drugs – those drugs whose possession and distribution is a federal felony, as is the use of the radio waves to promote their use. As we have warned before (see, for instance,... Continue Reading…
As life slowly returns to something approaching normal after the last two years, radio stations may be inclined to go big on some April Fool’s Day stunt. But remember that not everyone may be in on the joke and a prank that may seem funny to some could trigger concerns with others. As we do every... Continue Reading…
As life slowly returns to something approaching normal after the last two years, radio stations may be inclined to go big on some April Fool’s Day stunt. But remember that not everyone may be in on the joke and a prank that may seem funny to some could trigger concerns with others. As we do every... Continue Reading…
Last week, NPR ran a story with the provocative headline – “The Truth In Political Advertising – You’re Allowed to Lie.” The story talked about how the FCC does not regulate candidate advertising to decide the truth of political ads, and then quoted a former FCC Chair to say that candidates can “lie” in their... Continue Reading…
The FCC yesterday released another of its regular EEO audit notices (available here), this time targeting over 250 radio and TV stations. Those stations, and the station employment units (commonly owned stations serving the same area) with which they are associated, must provide to the FCC (by posting the information in their online public inspection file) their last two... Continue Reading…
The FCC this week announced that broadcasters must now comply with new rules designed to identify when programming is run on U.S. stations that was provided by a foreign governmental entity pursuant to a lease of airtime. While this seems like a narrow purpose, the new rules will impose a burden on broadcasters. Because of... Continue Reading…
In a Consent Decree released earlier this week, the FCC showed how serious it is about requiring that when a broadcaster applies for and receives authority to construct a new station or a modification of an existing station, it really plans to construct the station and operate on a permanent basis. In this case, a... Continue Reading…
In the last week, the FCC issued proposed fines to two big radio companies for alleged violations of FCC requirements. One proposed fine was for apparent violations of the FCC’s EEO rules, and the other dealt with the obligations of broadcasters to disclose and follow rules for on-air contests. In both cases, the proposed fines... Continue Reading…
With global tensions obviously at an extremely high level, we thought that we would reprint an FCC warning that we noted in one of our weekly updates of FCC actions just a month ago – alerting companies in all sectors of the communications industry of the possible threat of Russian cyber-hacking and urging that all... Continue Reading…