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Pillsbury’s communications lawyers have published the FCC Enforcement Monitor monthly since 1999 to inform our clients of notable FCC enforcement actions against FCC license holders and others.  This month’s issue includes:

  • FCC Warns New York Property Owners Over Pirate Radio Broadcasts
  • New Jersey AM Radio Station Cited for Tower, Power, and EAS Violations
  • FCC Targets Covered List Entity Over Equipment Authorization Violations

FCC Requires Early License Renewal Applications for Over 80 TV and LPTV Stations in Transfer of Control Investigation

The FCC’s Media Bureau issued an Order directing a broadcaster with over 80 TV and LPTV stations spread across nearly 30 states to file early license renewal applications for all of its stations.  The Order states that the Media Bureau has been investigating whether the licensee engaged in unauthorized transfers of control of its station licenses and, despite seemingly having received responses to two Letters of Inquiry (LOIs), determined that further action was warranted.  Notably, this Order was released the day before the FCC mandated early license renewal applications from ABC, ostensibly for its DEI efforts, leading many to suggest that this action the day before may have been taken to deprive ABC of the argument that calling for accelerated license renewal applications is unprecedented at the FCC.

Under the Communications Act and the FCC’s rules, a broadcaster may not assign or transfer control of a station license, either directly or indirectly, without prior Commission approval.  This requirement applies not only to formal ownership changes, but also to situations involving “de facto” control.  A de facto transfer occurs when a licensee no longer retains ultimate control over key aspects of its stations’ operations, including programming, personnel, and finances.  Although the Order does not describe the specific conduct under review, investigations of this nature often focus on whether operational or financial control shifted to a third party without first obtaining the required FCC authorization to do so.

The Order asserts that the FCC has authority to require early filing of broadcast license renewal applications when doing so is necessary to conduct an investigation and to evaluate the licensee’s compliance with its public interest obligations.  In this case, the Bureau concluded that it was “essential” to call the licenses in for early renewal.  As a result, the licensee must file license renewal applications for all of its stations within 30 days.

While the Order does not impose any immediate financial penalties, requiring the filing and prosecution of an early license renewal application, particularly for such a large number of stations, is costly and creates additional risks for the licensee.  The license renewal process requires the licensee to certify its continuing compliance with the FCC’s rules and its qualifications to remain an FCC licensee.  By moving up the license renewal application filing deadline, the FCC gives itself an immediate opportunity to review the licensee’s qualifications and rule compliance to determine whether license renewal, a short-term license renewal, or a license renewal with a fine or consent decree, is the appropriate regulatory action.

After the Order was released, the licensee filed a Petition for Reconsideration arguing that the FCC’s action was unprecedented, exceeded the Media Bureau’s delegated authority, and departed from longstanding FCC practice regarding early license renewal applications. The Petition also asserted that the underlying ownership issues had already been disclosed to the FCC and were the subject of pending transfer applications and an ongoing investigation to address them, obviating the need for early license renewal applications.

FCC Issues Short-Term License Renewal to Mississippi AM Station for Additional Public File Violations Following Consent Decree Over Prior Public File Violations

The FCC’s Media Bureau issued an Order on Reconsideration modifying a prior Memorandum Opinion and Order that had approved a Consent Decree resolving an investigation into potential violations of the Commission’s Public Inspection File rule by a Mississippi AM station.  Under the Consent Decree, the Bureau agreed to grant the station’s license renewal application upon satisfaction of certain conditions, including payment of a $1,000 “voluntary contribution,” the implementation of a compliance plan, and the absence of any additional violations.

Shortly after the Consent Decree was adopted on April 1, 2026, the Bureau determined that the station committed a new Public File violation by failing to timely upload a required quarterly Issues/Programs List by its April 10, 2026 deadline.  Because this violation occurred after execution of the Consent Decree, it was not covered by the settlement and was considered a “new violation” in evaluating the station’s pending license renewal application.  The Bureau found that failing to comply with the Public File rule, particularly so soon after committing to a compliance plan, constituted a serious and repeated violation that was part of a pattern of noncompliance. Continue reading →

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Time moves slowly in the regulatory universe, at least until you are facing a deadline.  It was in 2022 that I first wrote about the then-upcoming September 15, 2022 deadline for broadcasters to disclose whether all content “aired pursuant to the lease of time on the station” had a “foreign governmental entity” behind it, in which case the broadcaster needed to disclose that foreign sponsorship both on-air and in the station’s Public Inspection File.  The task was made more difficult by the broad definition of a foreign governmental entity, which included not just foreign governments, but “foreign political parties, agents of foreign principals, and United States-based foreign media outlets.”

The part of the rule requiring broadcasters to independently investigate whether those leasing airtime were foreign governmental entities was overturned by the courts in July 2022, but that didn’t prevent the remainder of the rule from going into effect in 2022.  The remainder (as summarized by the FCC) included:

(1) Inform the lessee of the foreign sponsorship disclosure requirement.
(2) Ask the lessee whether it falls into any of the categories that would qualify it as a “foreign governmental entity.”
(3) Ask the lessee whether it knows if any individual/entity further back in the chain of
producing/distributing the programming to be aired qualifies as a foreign governmental entity and has provided some type of inducement to air the programming.
(4) Memorialize the above-listed inquiries and retain such memorialization in its records for the remainder of the license term or for one year, whichever is longer.

The FCC, unwilling to settle for 4/5 of the apple and obviously stung by the court’s rebuke, altered the rule in June 2024 to sidestep the court’s ruling.  Since the court had found that the FCC lacked statutory authority to compel broadcasters to obtain sponsorship information from anyone other than their employees and program sponsors, the FCC amended the rule to require that either (1) the broadcaster and the sponsor execute separate certifications “reflecting the communications and inquiries required under the existing rules,” or (2) the broadcaster “ask their lessees for screenshots of lessees’ search results of two federal government websites [DOJ’s FARA website and the FCC’s U.S.-based foreign media outlets reports].”  In other words, the FCC’s maneuver was that if it was beyond its authority to make broadcasters conduct due diligence searches of those two government websites, it wasn’t beyond its authority to demand broadcasters still conduct due diligence research by asking their content providers/sponsors to search those same two websites and provide the search results to the broadcaster.

It’s an onerous requirement given that broadcasters have no legal right to demand anything of their content providers/sponsors, and those same providers can simply elect to take their business to literally every other form of media without facing such regulatory hurdles.  While unwelcome, it was still largely manageable because the FCC in adopting the original rule had made clear that a lease of airtime did not include “traditional, short-form advertising,” and leases of blocks of airtime on broadcast stations are relatively rare compared to traditional ad sales.

Unfortunately, in the later June 2024 Order, the FCC “clarified” the rule to make clear that it “will not apply to sales of advertising for commercial goods and services to the extent that such programming would not otherwise be subject to the general sponsorship disclosure rules, as set forth in section 73.1212(f) of our rules.”  So it would apply to ads that are not for “commercial goods and services.”  That includes ads for nonprofits and ads that don’t fit within Section 73.1212(f).  One example of an ad that is not for a commercial product or service is a U.S. Navy recruiting ad, meaning that broadcasters would need to collect certifications/proof that the U.S. Navy is not a representative of a foreign government before airing its recruiting ads.

The Order then plunged the regulatory dagger deeper, explicitly stating that the rule would apply to the airing of paid Public Service Announcements (PSAs) and all political advertising unless placed by a candidate.  The sheer volume of political ads and the pace at which they are changed in the months leading up to an election is staggering, with ample FCC Political File disclosure requirements already bedeviling stations trying to handle that workload.  The notion of demanding yet more information and documentation from a political advertiser adds to the burden on station employees while giving political advertisers one more reason to take their advertising elsewhere, where they will face none of those regulatory headaches.  And let’s be honest; some advertisers will be absolutely offended by the mere suggestion that they could be connected to a foreign government.

Because no one could figure out how to make such a labor and paperwork-intensive process work in the real world, and because the paperwork requirements had to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget before they could go into effect, the FCC originally announced the amended rule would go into effect a year later, on June 10, 2025.  Then, late in the day on June 10, 2025, the FCC announced an extension of the compliance deadline to December 8, 2025.  Announcing extensions for what appeared to many to be a fundamentally unworkable rule became a running feature here on CommLawCenter.

So I was not entirely surprised to find myself writing on December 5, 2025, one business day before the next deadline, that the FCC had just announced a further extension of the deadline to June 7, 2026.  That post ended with the hopeful message that the FCC might “use this added time to streamline these rather unwieldy requirements before next June.”

That proved partially prophetic.  This time around the FCC didn’t wait until the last minute to announce its plans regarding when broadcasters must come into compliance with the amended foreign sponsorship rule.  While today’s FCC Public Notice emphasized that the deadline for complying with the amended foreign sponsorship rule remains June 7, 2026, it announced that it is suspending the compliance deadline for advertisements and paid PSAs for “two years or until further public notice, whichever comes first.”

More important than the two-year extension is the reason given for it: “this delay of the advertisement and paid PSA regulation is necessary for the Commission to evaluate the costs and burdens associated with these requirements to ensure that there is sufficient offsetting public benefit.”  In other words, the FCC is reassessing whether the burden imposed by expanding the “diligence” requirement to advertising and paid PSAs makes any sense given the substantial burdens involved and the lack of any record evidence demonstrating that broadcast advertisements are being used as undisclosed propaganda tools by foreign governments.

That doesn’t mean that the non-diligence parts of the rule don’t still apply to advertisements and paid PSAs.  While broadcasters won’t be required to provide certifications or government database search results demonstrating that an ad sponsor is not connected to a foreign government, if the broadcaster has actual knowledge that the sponsor is connected to a foreign government, it must still ensure the ad includes an on-air disclosure of that fact, and place a record of it in its Public Inspection File.

So the next time you see a “Visit Scandinavia” ad that portrays Scandinavia as a pleasant place to visit, don’t fall for it.  That’s just what the Scandinavian governments want you to think.

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June 1 is the deadline for broadcast stations licensed to communities in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming to place their Annual EEO Public File Report in their Public Inspection File and post the report on their station website.

Under the FCC’s EEO Rule, all radio and television station employment units (“SEUs”), regardless of staff size, must afford equal opportunity to all qualified persons and practice nondiscrimination in employment.

In addition, those SEUs with five or more full-time employees (“Nonexempt SEUs”) must also comply with the FCC’s three-prong outreach requirements.  Specifically, Nonexempt SEUs must (i) broadly and inclusively disseminate information about every full-time job opening, except in exigent circumstances, (ii) send notifications of full-time job vacancies to referral organizations that have requested such notification, and (iii) earn a certain minimum number of EEO credits based on participation in various non-vacancy-specific outreach initiatives (“Menu Options”) suggested by the FCC, during each of the two-year segments (four segments total) that comprise a station’s eight-year license term.  These Menu Option initiatives include, for example, sponsoring job fairs, participating in job fairs, and having an internship program.

Nonexempt SEUs must prepare and place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the Public Inspection Files and on the websites of all stations comprising the SEU (if they have a website) by the anniversary date of the filing deadline for that station’s license renewal application.  The Annual EEO Public File Report summarizes the SEU’s EEO activities during the previous 12 months, and the licensee must maintain adequate records to document those activities.

For a detailed description of the EEO Rule and practical assistance in preparing a compliance plan, broadcasters should consult The FCC’s Equal Employment Opportunity Rules and Policies – A Guide for Broadcasters published by Pillsbury’s Communications Practice Group.

Deadline for the Annual EEO Public File Report for Nonexempt Radio and Television SEUs

Consistent with the above, June 1, 2026 is the date by which Nonexempt SEUs of radio and television stations licensed to communities in the states identified above, including Class A television stations, must (i) place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the Public Inspection Files of all stations comprising the SEU, and (ii) post the Report on the websites, if any, of those stations.  Once the new Report is posted on a station’s website, the prior year’s Report may be removed from that website. Continue reading →

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Broadcasters’ next Quarterly Issues/Programs List (“Quarterly List”) must be placed in stations’ Public Inspection Files by April 10, 2026, reflecting information for the months of January, February, and March 2026.

Content of the Quarterly List

The FCC requires each broadcast station to air a reasonable amount of programming responsive to significant community needs, issues, and problems as determined by the station.  The FCC gives each station the discretion to determine which issues facing the community served by the station are the most significant and how best to respond to them in the station’s overall programming.

To demonstrate a station’s compliance with this public interest obligation, the FCC requires the station to maintain and place in the Public Inspection File a Quarterly List reflecting the “station’s most significant programming treatment of community issues during the preceding three month period.”  By its use of the term “most significant,” the FCC has noted that stations are not required to list all responsive programming, but only that programming which provided the most significant treatment of the issues identified.

Given that program logs are no longer mandated by the FCC, the Quarterly Lists may be the most important evidence of a station’s compliance with its public service obligations.  The lists also provide important support for the certification of Class A television station compliance discussed below.  We therefore urge stations not to “skimp” on the Quarterly Lists, and to err on the side of over-inclusiveness.  Otherwise, stations risk a determination by the FCC that they did not adequately serve the public interest during their license term.  Stations should include in the Quarterly Lists as much issue-responsive programming as they feel is necessary to demonstrate fully their responsiveness to community needs.  Taking extra time now to provide a thorough Quarterly List will help reduce risk at license renewal time.

The FCC has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the Quarterly Lists and often brings enforcement actions against stations that do not have complete Quarterly Lists in their Public Inspection File or which have failed to timely upload such lists when due.  The FCC’s base fine for missing or late Quarterly Lists is $10,000.

Preparation of the Quarterly List

The Quarterly Lists are required to be placed in the Public Inspection File by January 10, April 10, July 10, and October 10 of each year.  The next Quarterly List is required to be placed in stations’ Public Inspection Files by April 10, 2026, covering the period from January 1, 2026 through March 31, 2026. Continue reading →

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April 1 is the deadline for broadcast stations licensed to communities in Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas to place their Annual EEO Public File Report in their Public Inspection File and post the report on their station website.

Under the FCC’s EEO Rule, all radio and television station employment units (“SEUs”), regardless of staff size, must afford equal opportunity to all qualified persons and practice nondiscrimination in employment.

In addition, those SEUs with five or more full-time employees (“Nonexempt SEUs”) must also comply with the FCC’s three-prong outreach requirements.  Specifically, Nonexempt SEUs must (i) broadly and inclusively disseminate information about every full-time job opening, except in exigent circumstances, (ii) send notifications of full-time job vacancies to referral organizations that have requested such notification, and (iii) earn a certain minimum number of EEO credits based on participation in various non-vacancy-specific outreach initiatives (“Menu Options”) suggested by the FCC, during each of the two-year segments (four segments total) that comprise a station’s eight-year license term.  These Menu Option initiatives include, for example, sponsoring job fairs, participating in job fairs, and having an internship program.

Nonexempt SEUs must prepare and place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the Public Inspection Files and on the websites of all stations comprising the SEU (if they have a website) by the anniversary date of the filing deadline for that station’s license renewal application.  The Annual EEO Public File Report summarizes the SEU’s EEO activities during the previous 12 months, and the licensee must maintain adequate records to document those activities.

For a detailed description of the EEO Rule and practical assistance in preparing a compliance plan, broadcasters should consult The FCC’s Equal Employment Opportunity Rules and Policies – A Guide for Broadcasters published by Pillsbury’s Communications Practice Group.

Deadline for the Annual EEO Public File Report for Nonexempt Radio and Television SEUs

Consistent with the above, April 1, 2026 is the date by which Nonexempt SEUs of radio and television stations licensed to communities in the states identified above, including Class A television stations, must (i) place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the Public Inspection Files of all stations comprising the SEU, and (ii) post the Report on the websites, if any, of those stations.  Once the new Report is posted on a station’s website, the prior year’s Report may be removed from that website. Continue reading →

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Pillsbury’s communications lawyers have published the FCC Enforcement Monitor monthly since 1999 to inform our clients of notable FCC enforcement actions against FCC license holders and others.  This month’s issue includes:

  • Public File Violations by Pennsylvania Class A Television Station Yield $6,000 Consent Decree
  • Spurious Emissions Lead to Notice of Violation for Hawaiian FM Station Licensee
  • Texas Radio Station Licenses Designated for Hearing Over Unauthorized Transfer of Control and Lack of Candor Claims

Pennsylvania Class A TV Station Licensee Agrees to $6,000 Consent Decree for Public File Violations

The Video Division of the FCC’s Media Bureau entered into a Consent Decree with the licensee of two Pennsylvania Class A TV stations to resolve an investigation into the stations’ failure to timely upload required documents to their online Public Inspection Files.

Section 73.3526(e)(11)(i) of the FCC’s Rules requires that every Class A TV station place in its Public Inspection File “a list of programs that have provided the station’s most significant treatment of community issues during the preceding three month period.”  The list must include a brief narrative of the issues addressed, as well as the date, time, duration, and title of each program aired addressing those issues.  The list must be placed in the Public Inspection File within 10 days of the end of each calendar quarter.

In March 2023, the licensee filed its license renewal applications for the two stations.  In the applications, the licensee certified that it had timely uploaded all required documentation to each station’s Public Inspection File during the license term.  However, after FCC staff notified the licensee that documents were in fact missing from both stations’ Public Inspection Files, the licensee belatedly uploaded five missing Issues/Programs Lists to one station’s Public File, and six missing Issues/Programs Lists to the other station’s Public File.  The licensee subsequently amended its license renewal applications to change the certification regarding timely Public Inspection File uploads from “yes” to “no.”

A staff review found that during the license term, one station had a total of six late Issues/Programs Lists during the license term (five of which were entirely missing until July 2025), and the other station had a total of seven late uploads (six of which were entirely missing until July 2025).  To resolve the matter, the licensee entered into the Consent Decree in which it admitted the facts surrounding the violations and agreed to implement new policies and procedures to prevent a recurrence.  These include designating a compliance officer, creating formal operating procedures to prevent future violations, drafting a compliance manual and distributing it to relevant employees, and conducting regular employee compliance training.

The licensee also agreed to report to the FCC within ten business days of discovery any violation of the Public Inspection File rule or the terms of the Consent Decree during the next two years.  Finally, it agreed to make a $6,000 voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury.  In return, the Media Bureau agreed to grant the stations’ license renewal applications, but conditioned the grants on receipt of the $6,000 payment.

Hawaii FM Station Receives Notice of Violation for Spurious Emissions

The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued a Notice of Violation (NOV) to the licensee of an FM radio station in Hawaii for generating spurious emissions at its transmitter site.  Spurious emissions occur when unintended radio frequency signals are generated outside a station’s assigned bandwidth.  These have the potential to cause harmful interference to other licensed users.

According to the NOV, the FCC’s Honolulu field office received a complaint from the Federal Aviation Administration, leading to an FCC field agent monitoring the FM station’s transmissions on May 14, 2025.  The agent observed signals emanating from the station’s transmitter site that were outside its licensed frequency and which were above the allowable limit under Section 73.317(d) of the FCC’s Rules.  These spurious emissions should have been attenuated by at least 80 dB compared to the station’s licensed transmissions, but the agent found that the spurious emissions far exceeded that level. Continue reading →

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As noted yesterday, the FCC announced in a robocall proceeding that all individuals and entities that have a Federal Registration Number (FRN) in the FCC’s CORES database are now required to update it within ten business days of any change in the associated information. In the underlying Order, the FCC stated its reasons for doing so in relation to the Robocall Mitigation Database, which is one of the systems that automatically incorporates FRN information:

Requiring Filers to Update Information in CORES
To ensure that the Robocall Mitigation Database reflects up-to-date information, we adopt our proposal in the Notice that all entities and individuals that register in CORES in order to submit filings to the Database or that register for any other purpose be required to update any information submitted to CORES within 10 business days of any change to that information.

The FCC then made clear that its use of the phase “all entities and individuals that register in CORES” wasn’t accidental:

Additionally, keeping information in CORES up to date may have benefits outside the robocall proceeding as well. As we stated in the Notice, this procedural improvement will also benefit other Commission databases beyond the Database that make use of contact information imported from CORES. We therefore implement a 10-business day deadline for all CORES registrants to submit updates after a change in information occurs.

In that same Order, the FCC also established base fines for (a) misrepresenting such information and (b) failing to keep such information up to date:

We agree with commenters that inadvertent errors or minor lapses in compliance should not result in the same penalties as willful misconduct. We therefore find that the base forfeiture should be significantly lower than the $10,000 base forfeiture we set for submitting false or inaccurate information. That said, we agree with commenters who point out that inaccurate information in the Robocall Mitigation Database is still harmful—regardless of whether the inaccuracy results from malfeasance or neglect. Finally, we look to the penalties assessed in similar circumstances and note that the Commission has already established a $1,000 base forfeiture for failure to maintain required records. A base forfeiture in the amount of $1,000 in this instance creates a meaningful distinction between willful/malicious misconduct and inadvertent error. We find that a separate penalty for failure to update information in the RMD after a change has occurred is a necessary addition in order to ensure that filers make accuracy a priority. Finally, we hold that the integrity of the data in the RMD is no less critical than other records that licensees/authorization holders must maintain; accordingly, we apply a penalty, consistent with the fines applied in analogous circumstances. We therefore adopt a $1,000 base forfeiture for failure to update Database information within 10 business days.

Like the earlier aspect of the Order that focused entirely on FRNs in the robocall context, but then proceeded to apply a new 10-business-day requirement to all FRN holders, the language above, while focused on robocalling, seems to suggest that the FCC believes a $1,000 a day base fine is appropriate for all such inadvertent failures to update information. Supporting this view is the Order’s assertions that such a fine amount is based on “penalties assessed in similar circumstances” and the fact “that the Commission has already established a $1,000 base forfeiture for failure to maintain required records,” citing only on an FM radio decision to support both propositions.

Communications lawyers around DC, particularly those with broadcast clients, were alarmed by both the universally-applicable 10-business-day deadline to update FRNs, and the Commission’s suggestion that a $1,000 a day base fine seemed appropriate given the “analogous circumstances” of an FM radio decision. Adding to that concern was the fact that the cited FM radio decision involved a “failure to maintain required records” where—surprise—the FCC’s base fine is $1,000. Of course, that doesn’t mean the FCC would fine broadcasters with outdated FRNs $1,000 a day until their FRN is updated, but it certainly suggests they could.

Bulletins and alerts went out to clients from their DC law firms warning of the new 10-day requirement and the potential for fines for those failing to meet that deadline. FCC regulatees rushed to update their FRNs today, only to be frustrated when the sheer amount of resulting traffic crashed the FCC’s systems, preventing such updates from being filed.

Seemingly in response, late today the FCC released a Public Notice with the exciting title Wireline Competition Bureau Reminds Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) Filers of Increased Base Forfeitures for Submitting False or Inaccurate Information and for Failure to Update RMD Filings. Not something a broadcaster or any other FCC licensee uninterested in robocall matters would typically read, but if there is anything to be learned from this episode, it is to read past the title of an FCC robocall document.

Those that did were rewarded in the second to last sentence which, to the FCC’s credit, was bolded and underlined, stating:

The Robocall Mitigation Database Report and Order did not address or change any forfeiture amounts that may be associated with failures to update the CORES information by non-RMD filers.

So it doesn’t say there won’t be fines associated with failures by those outside the robocall world to update their FRN information within 10 business days, but it at least states that the Order didn’t “address or change” those fines. We’ll call that a win. Still, I can’t help but wonder—if an FM radio station’s “failure to maintain required records” is “analogous” to a telecom provider’s failure to keep its contact information up to date in the Robocaller Mitigation Database, doesn’t that analogy run the other direction as well?

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Let’s state the obvious. The FCC’s use of mandatory Federal Registration Numbers was a bad idea from the start. It became monumentally worse today, when the FCC quietly announced that failure to update Federal Registration Number contact information within 10 business days of a change could trigger a $1,000 per day fine until it is updated, up to the current statutory maximum of $628,305.

Continue reading →

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February 1 is the deadline for broadcast stations licensed to communities in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma to place their Annual EEO Public File Report in their Public Inspection File and post the report on their station website.

Under the FCC’s EEO Rule, all radio and television station employment units (“SEUs”), regardless of staff size, must afford equal opportunity to all qualified persons and practice nondiscrimination in employment.

In addition, those SEUs with five or more full-time employees (“Nonexempt SEUs”) must also comply with the FCC’s three-prong outreach requirements.  Specifically, Nonexempt SEUs must (i) broadly and inclusively disseminate information about every full-time job opening, except in exigent circumstances, (ii) send notifications of full-time job vacancies to referral organizations that have requested such notification, and (iii) earn a certain minimum number of EEO credits based on participation in various non-vacancy-specific outreach initiatives (“Menu Options”) suggested by the FCC, during each of the two-year segments (four segments total) that comprise a station’s eight-year license term.  These Menu Option initiatives include, for example, sponsoring job fairs, participating in job fairs, and having an internship program.

Nonexempt SEUs must prepare and place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the Public Inspection Files and on the websites of all stations comprising the SEU (if they have a website) by the anniversary date of the filing deadline for that station’s license renewal application.  The Annual EEO Public File Report summarizes the SEU’s EEO activities during the previous 12 months, and the licensee must maintain adequate records to document those activities.

For a detailed description of the EEO Rule and practical assistance in preparing a compliance plan, broadcasters should consult The FCC’s Equal Employment Opportunity Rules and Policies – A Guide for Broadcasters published by Pillsbury’s Communications Practice Group.

Deadline for the Annual EEO Public File Report for Nonexempt Radio and Television SEUs

Consistent with the above, February 1, 2026 is the date by which Nonexempt SEUs of radio and television stations licensed to communities in the states identified above, including Class A television stations, must (i) place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the Public Inspection Files of all stations comprising the SEU, and (ii) post the Report on the websites, if any, of those stations.  Once the new Report is posted on a station’s website, the prior year’s Report may be removed from that website. Continue reading →

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The deadline to file the 2025 Annual Children’s Television Programming Report with the FCC is January 30, 2026, reflecting programming aired during the 2025 calendar year.  In addition, commercial stations’ documentation of their compliance with the commercial limits in children’s programming during the 2025 calendar year must be placed in their Public Inspection File by January 30, 2026.

Overview

The Children’s Television Act of 1990 requires full power and Class A television stations to: (1) limit the amount of commercial matter aired during programs originally produced and broadcast for an audience of children 12 years of age and under, and (2) air programming responsive to the educational and informational needs of children 16 years of age and under.  In addition, stations must comply with paperwork requirements related to these obligations.

Since the Act’s passage, the FCC has refined the rules relating to these requirements a number of times.  The current rules provide broadcasters with flexibility that prior versions of the rules did not in scheduling educational children’s television programming, and modify some aspects of the definition of “core” educational children’s television programming.  Quarterly filing of the commercial limits certifications and the Children’s Television Programming Report has been eliminated in favor of annual filings.

Commercial Television Stations

Commercial Limitations

The FCC’s rules require that stations limit the amount of “commercial matter” appearing in programs aimed at children 12 years old and younger to 12 minutes per clock hour on weekdays and 10.5 minutes per clock hour on the weekend.  The definition of commercial matter includes not only commercial spots, but also (i) website addresses displayed during children’s programming and promotional material, unless they comply with a four-part test, (ii) websites that are considered “host-selling” under the Commission’s rules, and (iii) program promos, unless they promote (a) children’s educational/informational programming, or (b) other age-appropriate programming appearing on the same channel. Continue reading →