Last week, a federal District Court ruled that the US Department of Health and Human Services did not have the authority to require that drug manufacturers include pricing information on their television commercials. We wrote about that requirement, here – a requirement that was supposed to go into effect this summer. However, the District Court...… Continue Reading
The FCC at its open meeting last week took two actions important to TV broadcasters – modifying its children’s television rules and changing the process by which TV stations give notice to MVPDs of their must carry or retransmission consent elections. On the children’s television rules, the FCC largely adopted the proposals in their draft...… Continue Reading
In a very important proceeding we summarized here, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is reviewing the antitrust consent decrees that govern ASCAP and BMI – the decrees that require that these performing rights organizations treat similarly situated licensees (and artists) in the same way and which allow a Court to review the reasonableness of...… Continue Reading
The FCC earlier last week posted on its Blog an article from the Chief of its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau about state EAS plans, stressing how important these plans are to making sure that any emergency message conveyed through an EAS alert is properly transmitted to all who are supposed to receive it,...… Continue Reading
We have written several articles (see our articles here and here) about the regulation of CBD and the risks inherent in the broadcast of advertisements for these products. CBD is in a legal limbo, as the Farm Act of 2018 took hemp products with less than .3% THC off the list of prohibited drugs on...… Continue Reading
When the FCC initiated its most recent EEO audits, we mentioned that the Commission was planning a rulemaking to review the effectiveness of its EEO rules for broadcasting and multi-channel video operators. The FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking to review these rules has now been released. This review was prompted by complaints raised in...… Continue Reading
July is an important month for regulatory filings – even though it is one of those months with no FCC submissions tied to any license renewal dates. Instead, quarterly obligations arise this month, the most important of which will have an impact in the ongoing license renewal cycle that began in June (see last month’s...… Continue Reading
In anticipation of its July 10 open meeting, the FCC last week released its draft Order making changes to its rules requiring television stations to broadcast specific amounts of educational and informational programming directed to children. The current rules require that stations air an average of three hours of such programming every week for every...… Continue Reading
The FCC yesterday released another of its regular EEO audit notices (available here), asking that approximately 80 radio stations, and the employment units with which they are associated, provide to the FCC (by posting the information in their online public inspection file) their last two year’s EEO Annual Public File reports, as well as backing...… Continue Reading