Legislative Update

The National Association of Broadcasters is quickly pushing back against a proposal by the Federal Communications Commission to raise the annual regulatory fees on radio stations by an average of eight percent, according to a report in InsideRadio. In a disclosure filing, NAB General Counsel and Executive Vice President Legal and Regulatory Affairs Rick Kaplan…

This past week, your MAB held its annual “Call on Congress” meetings with lawmakers from across Michigan.  Due to the continued pandemic concerns, this years COC was held virtually.  On Wednesday, MAB members were able to speak and discuss broadcast-related issues with staff from Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin’s (D-8th) office, Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-10th), Congresswoman Rashida…

Local journalism needs to be part of President Biden’s call for investment in national infrastructure, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) told the NAB State Leadership Conference this week. According to a report in InsideRadio, she plans to introduce legislation that would make as much as $2.3 billion in tax credits and grants available over the next…

By: David Oxenford, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP Everyone knows that a fundamental principle of American democracy is the First Amendment – guaranteeing many freedoms to US citizens including freedom of the press and freedom of speech.  It is one of those concepts that underlies our society, but is often mentioned only in passing, and rarely considered in…

Michigan’s U.S. Reps. Fred Upton (R-6), Tim Walberg (R-7) and Debbie Dingell (D-12) were among the 77 bipartisan cosponsors of House Resolution in support of the Local Radio Freedom Act introduced this week in the Senate. For more than a decade, broadcasters have rallied allies in Congress to proactively take a stand against a performance…

For a third consecutive year the annual regulatory fees that the Federal Communications Commission proposes to collect from radio stations is going up, and this year’s planned increase is twice that of a year ago, according to a report in InsideRadio. The FCC has proposed to hike annual fees by eight percent in 2021 as…

Last week, the FCC released a guide summarizing TV closed captioning quality standards (accuracy, synchronicity, completeness, and placement). The guide includes best practices and discusses how TV stations must monitor and maintain their equipment and signal transmissions associated with closed captioning, perform technical equipment checks, take any corrective measures necessary to ensure that captioning is…

By: David Oxenford, Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP The FCC’s order adopted in late October authorizing AM stations to voluntarily convert to operations in a fully-digital mode became effective yesterday when the approval of its information-collection obligations under the Paperwork Reduction Act was announced in the Federal Register.  This means that AM stations can opt for full-digital operations, which many have argued will…