This Week in Regulation for Broadcasters:  November 25, 2024 to November 29, 2024

Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit announced that oral argument in the appeal of the FCC’s reinstatement of the FCC Form 395-B is “tentatively scheduled” for the week of February 3, 2025.  The FCC reinstated the Form 395-B in February 2024.  The Form requires a yearly reporting on a station’s employees, broken down by race and gender and employment position (see our Broadcast Law Blog article about that decision here). The effective date of the reinstatement is on hold while the new form is being reviewed (see our article on the delay of the effective date here).  Appeals by several broadcast groups are being heard by the Fifth Circuit.  The appeals argue that the report is unconstitutional because it unlawfully pressures broadcasters to engage in race- and sex-conscious employment practices.  As we discussed here, no matter how the Court rules, the soon-to-be Republican-led FCC may revisit this decision as FCC Chairman designate Carr recently tweeted on X that the agency, under his leadership, would deprioritize “DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) efforts.
• The FCC’s Media Bureau announced that comments are due December 26 (with replies due January 9) responding to the National Association of Broadcasters’ request for a rulemaking  to change the rule that was to be effective on the November 26 requiring TV stations to provide an aural description of non-textual emergency information, such as maps or other graphic displays, conveyed outside of station newscasts. The NAB requests that broadcasters be able to comply with the rule by providing “textual crawls that provide emergency information duplicative or equivalent to the information conveyed by the visual image.”  Otherwise, the NAB argues, many stations will cease airing visual images regarding emergencies due to their inability to comply with the rule. For more on the NAB petition, see our article here.  The NAB, in its rulemaking proposal, also requested an 18-month extension of the November 26 effective date while the FCC considers the rulemaking request. As this week’s FCC announcement did not address the request to extend the effective date of the rule, the NAB on Wednesday filed a request asking for a retroactive extension while its rulemaking request is being considered.
• The Media Bureau also reminded broadcasters of a filing freeze starting at 12:01 a.m. EST on December 3, 2024 for all full power TV station channel change petitions and for all full power and Class A TV station minor and major modification applications.  The freeze is to allow for a filing window opening at 12:01 a.m. EST on December 4, 202 for new noncommercial educational TV stations in communities in Alabama, Alaska, California, Idaho, Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia.  In October, the Media Bureau announced filing procedures for the this filing window and also imposed a filing freeze beginning October 10 on petitions seeking to add new reserved NCE channels to the Table of TV Allotments – in addition to the filing freezes beginning on December 3.  The filing freezes will continue until the filing window closes at 6:00 p.m. EST on December 11, 2024.  See our discussion here for more on the NCE filing window and the filing freezes.
• The FCC released a Small Entity Compliance Guide summarizing the FCC’s rules governing “Next Generation” broadcast TV stations (Next GenTV or ATSC 3.0), including the ATSC 3.0 technical requirements, interference protection requirements, cable/satellite carriage and simulcasting rules, and recordkeeping and reporting requirements.
• The Media Bureau granted the substitution of Channel 11, at Lubbock, Texas for Channel 35, and the substitution of Channel 35, at Lubbock, Texas for Channel 36, which allows two Lubbock TV stations to “swap” their channels to enable the Channel 35 station to replace its failing equipment with that of the Channel 11 station.  The Bureau ordered the stations to file minor change applications to move to their new channels within ten days of the Order’s publication in the Federal Register.