He succeeds Antwane Johnson, who retired earlier this year
Manny Centeno, who is familiar to broadcasters who work in emergency alerting, has been promoted to director of IPAWS at FEMA. Centeno succeeds Antwane Johnson, who had held the post since 2009. Centeno’s prior title was program manager.
This morning, the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the BBB National Programs issued a new compliance warning covering the use of AI in its advertising and privacy guidelines.
The fiscal 2024 budget request asks for $448,075,000 in budget authority from regulatory fee offsetting collections
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC has released a budgetary request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 that asks for $448,075,000 in budget authority from regulatory fee offsetting collections. This request represents an increase of $57,883,000 or 14.8 percent from the FY 2024 Annualized Continuing Appropriations Act level of $390,192,000.
If enacted by Congress, that could lead to higher fees for broadcasters, though the FCC has not explained how it would achieve the regulatory fee increases.
The FCC also requests $139,000,000 in budget authority for the Spectrum Auctions program. Last year Congress allowed the FCC’s authority to conduct auctions to expire and the FCC is currently pushing Congress to renew the authority. As of December 31, 2023 the Commission’s spectrum auctions program has generated over $233.5 billion for government use; at the same time, the total cost of the spectrum auctions program has been less than $2.5 billion or 1.1 percent of the total auctions’ revenue, the FCC said.
Until now, the FCC has not considered programming when taking into account a station’s license. However, the Media and Democracy Project, an advocacy group backed by Preston Padden, wants that to change, as it claims falsehoods shared by a Fox Televison Stations-owned broadcast TV station in Philadelphia during the 2020 U.S. presidential election season is grounds for preventing its license renewal.
While the merits of that fight are being debated, the Chairwoman of the FCC has circulated amongst the Commissioners a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that she believes will support local journalism.
An appellate panel said Texas photojournalists were wrong to believe they have a sweeping First Amendment right to film private citizens on private property without permission.
(CN) — In a loss for Texas journalists, a Fifth Circuit panel on Monday ruled a state law restricting use of drones does not violate the First Amendment.
While flying his drone over a San Marcos, Texas apartment complex where several people had died from an arson fire in July 2018, San Antonio Express-News multimedia reporter Billy Calzada was approached by a federal agent.
The agent told him he was interfering with a federal investigation and called San Marcos police.
An officer told Calzada he was violating Chapter 423 of the Texas Government Code and could be charged with misdemeanors, with penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $10,000 fine, if he continued to use his drone to report on the fire or if he published any of the photos or footage he had taken with it.
Just announced, the FCC has extended the deadline for uploading Quarterly Issues Programs list to your online public file from January 10 to January 31. As you may know, the Commission has been having issues with its Online Public Inspection File system and because of that the deadline has been extended until the end of the month.
Radio stations to pay hundreds of dollars more for some FCC applications
Commercial radio broadcasters in the United States will pay more to apply for construction permits, license assignments and special temporary authority requests. The Federal Communications Commission is adjusting the fees it charges radio stations, and other businesses under its purview, for the processing of applications and other filings.
The commission on Friday said it is adjusting its Schedule of Application Fees to reflect a net change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 11.6%. That will be applied to the fees various commercial AM and FM broadcast services pay. The rates will take effect 30 days after publication of the notice in the Federal Register.
This increase is not to be confused with the one involving annual regulatory fees that was recently in the news.
FCC order aims to eliminate rule inconsistencies and drop outdated ones
Here is an update to a story we’ve been following for you: The updated technical rules for U.S. radio broadcasters take effect April 18.
As reported earlier, the Federal Communications Commission in February released a report and order with the goal of streamlining and eliminating rules that it found redundant, outdated or conflicting.
That order now has been published in the Federal Register, so the rules officially kick in April 18.
The changes are described more fully in the article “FCC Finalizes Changes to Tech Rules.”
The National Association of Broadcasters is doubling down on its position that Big Tech companies should pay annual regulatory fees to the Federal Communications Commission. In reply comments filed Friday, the trade group says a June 4 DC Circuit Court decision gives the agency the authority to do so.
The FCC has proposed to hike annual fees by an average of eight percent as it aims to collect $374 million from all the industries it regulates. Some fees will go up by as much as 15% in what would be a third consecutive year of broadcast owners being asked to dig deeper.
The NAB’s position is the FCC has the authority to ensure that all industries pay for their fair share of the Commission’s indirect costs and should charge big tech companies and other unlicensed spectrum users regulatory fees to more accurately reflect the work the Commission performs.
Now the trade group is calling on the Commission to issue a Further Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on charging regulatory fees for Big Tech and other unlicensed spectrum users.
Said that is needed COVID-19 aid for key players in national pandemic response
A bipartisan House duo has asked the FCC to cut broadcasters some slack when it comes to regulatory fees given that TV and radio are critical components of COVID-19 response and that their ad revenue has taken a big hit.
Reps. Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.) and Chris Stewart (R-Utah) wrote FCC chair Ajit Pai to ask the FCC not to increase annual broadcast regulatory fees during the pandemic.
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