Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

While all the details are not out yet, the trade press has been filled with announcements this evening reporting that SoundExchange and the National Association of Broadcasters have reached a deal on Internet Radio Royalties. This deal will apparently settle the royalty dispute between broadcasters and SoundExchange for royalties covering 2006-2010 which arose from the 2007 Copyright Royalty Board decision , as well as the upcoming proceeding for the royalties for 2011-2015.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

I just finished speaking on a panel at the Radio Ink Convergence '09 conference in San Jose. My panel was called " The Distribution Dilemma: Opportunities, Partnership and Landmines." As the legal representative, my role was, of course, to talk about the landmines. And one occurred to me in the middle of the panel when a representative of Ibiquity , the HD Radio people, about one of the opportunities available for the multicast channels available in that system, where an FM radio operato

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 25, 2009

In the last two weeks, we have seen Capitol Hill rallies by the Free Radio Alliance, opposing what they term the “ performance tax &# on radio, and yesterday by the Music First Coalition , trying to persuade Congress to adopt a performance royalty on the use of sound recordings for the over-the-air signal of broadcast stations. We’ve written about the theories as to why a performance royalty on sound recordings should or should not be paid by broadcasters, but one question that now s

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 25, 2009

The FCC's Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking implementing changes resulting from the Congressional delay in the DTV transition deadline and seeking comment on a number of proposed rule changes has been published in the Federal Register. Comments on the Commission's proposed rules, including changes to the transition procedures that would restrict the ability of television stations to terminate the analog operations, must be filed by Wednesday March 4, 2009.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

The week before last, we wrote that FCC's filing fees for applications submitted to the Commission would be going up on February 18, and included a link to the FCC Fee Filing Guide for the new fees. Well, shortly before the supposed effective date, the Filing Guide disappeared from the FCC website, and the new fees have not been programmed into the FCC's electronic filing system.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 19, 2009

The FCC has an open proceeding pending to allow AM stations to use FM translators. As we have written , while this proceeding continues, the Commission is allowing AM stations to rebroadcast their signals on FM translators on under Special Temporary Authority. In a case decided today, the FCC made clear that this is only permitted where the translator already is an authorized facility.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 18, 2009

The FCC today issued two fines to stations who violated the FCC's rule against airing phone calls for which permission had not been received before the call was either taped for broadcast or aired live. We've written about other fines for the violation of this rule, Section 73.1206 , many times (see here , here , and here ). What was interesting about the new cases is that they made clear that a station needs to get permission to record or broadcast the phone call even before the person at the o

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 17, 2009

Many television stations are making the conversion to all-digital operations today (see our post here for details). These stations should remember that the DTV Consumer Education efforts that are currently in place apply to both the analog channel and the primary digital channel, and thus will continue after the conversion. Based on the current rules, the obligation to continue the education efforts extend through March 31st.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 15, 2009

With February 17 only two days away - when all television stations had planned to be terminating their analog service until Congress passed the extension of the conversion deadline until June 12 - many stations are still planning to convert to fully digital operations on that date. In the last few days, we have seen a flurry of FCC orders about the conversion - including one issued late Friday night modifying requirements that had previously been announced, including the requirement that station

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 10, 2009

In three recent cases, the FCC revisited the issue of broadcast contest rules - fining stations for not following the rules that they set out for on-air contests, and reiterating that the full rules of any contest need to be aired on the station (see our previous post on this issue here). The most recent case also made clear that a broadcast station's contests that may be primarily conducted on its web site are still subject to the FCC's rules if any mention of the contest is made on the broadca

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 6, 2009

Months ago, the FCC announced that the fees paid by broadcasters (and other services) for the processing of applications and other filings would be going up. It was only recently that the notice was published in the Federal Register, and the FCC has now announced that the new fees will go into effect on February 18. The new fees for broadcast and cable applications can be found in the Media Bureau filing guide, found here.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 6, 2009

Yesterday, we briefly wrote about the FCC's release of a notice summarizing the process that television stations need to follow as they transition to digital under the newly extended DTV conversion date. In yesterday's post, we promised a more detailed memo summarizing the requirements that the FCC has set out. That advisory is now available here. For stations that are still planning to go completely digital, and to terminate their analog operations , on February 17, the information in the memo

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 5, 2009

With the extension of the DTV transition deadline now passed by Congress, it's the FCC's turn to implement the extension and set the way in which television stations will deal with the new June 12 date for the termination of analog television. To start to implement that extension, the FCC today issued a public notice setting out the procedures to be followed by stations in dealing with the new deadline.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

The battle over the broadcast performance royalty has begun anew, with the introduction of legislation to impose a performance royalty for the use of sound recordings on broadcast stations. This royalty would be in addition to the royalties paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (which go to compensate composers of music), as this royalty would be paid to the performers of the music (and the copyright holders in the recorded performance - usually the record companies).

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 2, 2009

While it seems like we just finished the election season, it seems like there is always an election somewhere. We are still getting calls about municipal and other state and local elections that are underway. And broadcasters need to remember that these elections, like the Federal elections that we've just been through, are subject to the FCC's equal time (or "equal opportunities") rule.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 8, 2009

Last week, we wrote about how the Fairness Doctrine was applied before it was declared unconstitutional by the FCC in the late 1980s. When we wrote that entry, it seemed as if the whole battle over whether or not it would be reinstated was a tempest in a teapot. Conservative commentators were fretting over the re-imposition, while liberals were complaining that the conservatives were making up issues.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 21, 2009

The FCC late Friday released an Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing a number of issues which arose as a result of the Congressional delay in the DTV transition deadline from February 17 until June 12. In many cases, the actions taken in the Order are ministerial - e.g. changing the expiration dates on digital construction permits from February to June.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 2, 2009

As we wrote on Friday, the Senate has passed the Bill that would extend from February 17 to June 12 the deadline for full-power television stations to transition to digital operations. This leaves the House of Representatives to once again consider the matter - supposedly in committee on Tuesday and perhaps by vote of the full House as early as Wednesday.

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Broadcast Law Blog

FEBRUARY 4, 2009

The House of Representatives, after a fairly contentious debate, today passed the Bill extending the termination date for analog service by full-power TV stations , extending the Digital Television deadline until June 12. By that date, all full-power stations will need to complete the transition to digital so that, on June 13, there will be no more analog full-power television stations.

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