Comment Dates Set on Possible Revision to Rules on Significantly Viewed Television Stations for MVPD Carriage Purposes – What Is Being Asked?

By |2020-04-17T11:03:11-05:00April 17th, 2020|Legal News|

This week, the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Significant Viewing was published in the Federal Register, setting a comment deadline of May 14, with reply comments due by June 15.  The NPRM asks for comments as to whether the FCC should update its rules for establishing whether or not a TV station is “significantly... Continue Reading…

Comment Dates Set on Possible Revision to Rules on Significantly Viewed Television Stations for MVPD Carriage Purposes – What Is Being Asked?

By |2020-04-17T11:03:11-05:00April 17th, 2020|Legal News|

This week, the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Significant Viewing was published in the Federal Register, setting a comment deadline of May 14, with reply comments due by June 15.  The NPRM asks for comments as to whether the FCC should update its rules for establishing whether or not a TV station is “significantly... Continue Reading…

FCC Grants First Wave of Funding for COVID-19 Telehealth Programs

By |2020-04-16T17:44:37-05:00April 16th, 2020|Legal News|

On March 31, 2020, the FCC adopted a Report and Order to implement the COVID-19 Telehealth Program.  The Program was established in the CARES Act, and the FCC was appropriated $200 million to provide to eligible medical facilities to provide telehealth services to their patients. A more detailed discussion of the FCC’s Report and Order […]

Low Power FM Rule Changes Slated for April 23 FCC Vote

By |2020-04-16T09:00:25-05:00April 16th, 2020|Legal News|

The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has released a draft of a Report and Order  scheduled for a vote on April 23, looking toward making several changes in the rules governing Low Power FM (“LPFM”) radio stations.  We wrote an article last year when the rules were proposed.  Not all the requests for rule changes will...… Continue Reading

Corrected Comment Deadlines for Regulation of RF Emissions in Higher Frequency Bands

By |2020-04-16T08:57:00-05:00April 16th, 2020|Legal News|

On January 9, 2020, we blogged about a Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) decision resolving many of the issues that it had been considering with respect to limits on exposure of human beings to radiofrequency (“RF”) energy. The FCC also invited comments as to whether it should extend its regulation of RF emissions from the present range of...… Continue Reading

Court Decision Dismissing Photographer’s Lawsuit Shows Breadth of Rights Granted to Social Media and Denies Infringement Claim for Instagram Embedded Photo

By |2020-04-15T22:42:44-05:00April 15th, 2020|Legal News|

In an interesting Court decision from the Southern District of New York, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a photographer for the use of her photo without permission by the website Mashable.  Mashable defended against the claim by arguing that it did not need a license directly from the photographer as it had not... Continue Reading…

Effective Date of Truth-in-Billing Statute Deferred

By |2020-04-15T09:30:32-05:00April 15th, 2020|Legal News|

Last year, a new law, the Television Viewer Protection Act of 2019 (“TVPA”), was enacted, requiring Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (“MVPDs”) and providers of fixed broadband services to disclose all charges that a consumer will have to pay before he or she signs up for service.  The statute requires compliance by June 20, 2020, but...… Continue Reading

FCC Continues Fines for Improper Use of EAS Signals

By |2020-04-13T12:00:58-05:00April 13th, 2020|Legal News|

The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or the “Commission”) remains consistent in its enforcement of fines for the improper use of Emergency Alert System (“EAS”) tones.  On April 7, 2020, the Commission released a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (the “Notice”) proposing to levy a $20,000 fine against Entercom License, LLC (Entercom) station WNEW-FM for...… Continue Reading

FCC Asked to Consider “Zonecasting” for FM Stations – Initial Comments Due May 4

By |2020-04-13T11:12:27-05:00April 13th, 2020|Legal News|

In the last few weeks, both on the radio and TV side of the broadcasting house, significant actions have been taken to potentially expand the use of zoned broadcasting to allow broadcasters to better target their audience with programming and advertisements.  For TV, that is the proposed increase in use of distributed transmission systems, about... Continue Reading…

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