Preparing for an Unpredictable Year: The Pillsbury 2026 Broadcasters’ Calendar

While there was much talk of broadcast deregulation at the FCC in 2025, the two big deregulatory changes of the past year were actually delivered by federal appeals courts.  Specifically, the Eighth Circuit’s elimination of the TV Big-4 duopoly rule, and Pillsbury’s own victory in a Fifth Circuit ruling that the FCC lacks authority to collect and publish on a station-by-station basis broadcast employee race, ethnicity and gender data via the fifty-year-old Form 395-B.  The first ruling opened the door to more competitive (and viable) TV station combinations, and the latter saved both radio and TV broadcasters many millions of dollars in compliance costs while also shielding them from online harassment by those finding fault with, or claiming news skew caused by, whatever mix of employee demographics a station happens to have.

So as we look ahead to 2026, all eyes are on the FCC in hopes that the talk of broadcast deregulation crystalizes into action this year.  For a list of potential targets for deregulation, look no further than Pillsbury’s just-released 2026 Broadcasters’ Calendar, outlining broadcasters’ major FCC and other filing deadlines for the year ahead.  Besides being a good reminder of important filing dates for stations across the U.S., the Calendar also serves as a reminder that no other form of media is regulated to such a degree as broadcasters, with fairly sizeable penalties for missteps, as Pillsbury’s monthly FCC Enforcement Monitor reminds us.

One prominent set of entries in the 2026 Broadcasters’ Calendar is the Quarterly Issues/Programs List requirement, which obligates stations to list issues relevant to their community in the past quarter and examples of programming aired to address those issues.  Once a major weapon in comparative license renewal hearings in which a challenger sought to demonstrate that a broadcaster’s license should not be renewed, and should instead be awarded to the challenger, time has passed them by.  First, Congress outlawed comparative license renewal challenges in 1996.  Second, the advent of digital video and audio recorders provide license renewal petitioners with far better and more comprehensive evidence of a broadcaster’s programming than any quarterly list.  For those with any doubts about this last point, you only need glance online to find videos of seemingly every program and newscaster gaffe ever aired by a station.

That makes the Quarterly Issues/Programs List one of the more challenging regulatory requirements to defend, as the only FCC actions related to them in recent decades has been to fine stations for failing to timely file them (base fine for a violation = $10,000).  For that reason, elimination of the Quarterly Issues/Programs List featured prominently in the many requests for broadcast deregulation filed in Chairman Carr’s Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding.  Whether such a change will come to pass depends heavily, however, on whether the FCC sees the lists as being relevant to Chairman Carr’s repeated calls to more aggressively enforce the FCC’s public interest mandate as it relates to programming.

Whether you view the 2026 Broadcasters’ Calendar as a handy regulatory roadmap for the year ahead, or as a reminder of all the regulatory obstacles that broadcasters, and broadcasters alone, must overcome to compete in an ever-expanding sea of unregulated media competitors, it is a useful document.  Make it your New Year’s resolution to spend some time with it.