If you are planning to file comments on the FCC's effort to implement the "analog nightlight" service, you'd better put aside thoughts of a pleasant New Year's Eve and New Year's Day holiday and start drafting now. Comments are officially due on Monday, January 5, 2009. Reply comments are due three days later, on Thursday, January 8.… Continue Reading
The Copyright Royalty Board issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which may convert a requirement that webcasters file playlists representing two "weeks" per quarter with SoundExchange into a year round obligation.… Continue Reading
The Media Bureau has announced that it will start accepting applications for new replacement digital translators on January 5, 2009. The STA window will be open for business as well. Here's how the system will work.… Continue Reading
The November issue of FHH’s Memo to Clients featured the annual FCC-themed crossword puzzle (title this year: “Calls of the Wild”). While this year’s MTC Puzzle Maven Skip Pizzi made short work of it (rocking in with a completed grid almost before we had sent the puzzle out), others may have encountered more difficulties than Skip. … Continue Reading
Acting with blazing speed, on Christmas Eve the Commission released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) setting out the tentative standards and processes for implementation of the SAFER Act which was signed into law on December 23, just the day before the NPRM was released. The SAFER Act - which the FCC now catchily refers to as the "Analog Nightlight Act" - authorizes continued, albeit very limited, operation of some analog TV stations beyond the previously-established February 17, 2009, termination date of such operation.… Continue Reading
The FCC has proposed opening a special opportunity for full power television stations to apply for what will be known as digital "Replacement" translators to fill in gaps in the coverage of their primary signal.… Continue Reading
It’s official. According to the White House, President Bush has signed the SAFER Act on December 23. Analog TV will live on for another 30 days – subject to the limitations we described in our earlier post.… Continue Reading
We have nothing new to report about the ION/Urban proposal to sell share-time "licenses" (in secondary DTV streams), but we do have some news about the FCC's processing of that proposal. The Commission has announced that the application will be treated as a "permit-but-disclose" proceeding.… Continue Reading
Cohen, Dippell and Everist (CDE) has sought partial reconsideration of the new computer moment method modeling rules for directional AM proofs. CDE reasonably asks that the Commission provide a tad more guidance as to what the Commission wants to see in such proofs. CDE also raises what it refers to as the "moral hazard" issue. This is where things get interesting.… Continue Reading
A petitioner, relying on an obscure 1984 public notice, recently tried to block a proposed station modification by claiming (among other things) that the omnidirectional antenna proposed should be treated as a directional. Broadcasters (and particularly FM stations) with plans to change their antennas in the near term may wish to take note.… Continue Reading
Last year Google thrust itself into the network neutrality debate by promoting open-platform wireless handsets. Now it has reentered the fray from the other side.… Continue Reading
On Friday, December 12, we told you that the Commission had released the agenda for their final hurrah of 2008 (scheduled for December 18) - remember? Well, that was sooo yesterday's news.… Continue Reading
Four thousand dollars strikes us as a large fine for violating a rule that, when complied with, has little or no practical effect. This is the first time in the rule's almost-thirty-year history that the FCC has penalized anyone for violating it.… Continue Reading
It looks like over-the-air analog TV will live on beyond February 17, 2009, thanks to Congress - but at most it will live on only for 30 days, and only subject to severe content limitations. On December 11, Congress passed the Short-term Analog Flash and Emergency Readiness ("SAFER") Act.… Continue Reading
There are lessons to be learned from a recent consent decree entered into by Sony BMG Entertainment for any broadcaster who allows children to provide personally identifying information through a station's website.… Continue Reading
Back in September we reported on an invitation for comments on how to amend the rules regulating tower construction near AM stations. At long last the Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SFNPRM) has made it into the Federal Register. Publication in the FedReg in turn establishes the dates for comments. If you want to file comments … Continue Reading
With much ballyhoo, on December 9 a report from the majority (i.e., Democratic) staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce was released, slapping the bejeebers out of Chairman Martin. Despite a considerable amount of grandstanding on the part of the House Committee, the report itself is disappointing on a couple of levels.… Continue Reading
The Paperwork Reduction Act is a law intended to curb the excesses of federal regulatory agencies by mandating independent review of all new regulations which impose paperwork burdens on the public. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was appointed to be the final checkpoint on the regulatory assembly line to ensure that agencies were not overstepping. It was satisfying last week to see OMB manfully exercise a rare veto over an FCC rule.… Continue Reading
A lucky few, very patient, noncommercial educational (NCE) applicants got an early Christmas present this year: the Commission has reconsidered its Grinch-like 2003 decision to summarily dismiss their applications. But they're not out of the woods yet.… Continue Reading
As you may know, the November issue of our Memo to Clients has, for the past several years, included an FCC-themed crossword puzzle, and this year was no exception. The issue was shipped out the day before Thanksgiving, and lo and behold, the following Tuesday we received word that one of our faithful readers had successfully … Continue Reading
In a deft attempt to snag FCC-blessed mandatory cable carriage for non-primary digital streams - an issue which the FCC has managed to dodge for years - ION Media Networks and BET founder and billionaire Robert Johnson have lobbed in an assignment application which, if granted, would likely have profound effects on the DTV television industry. The FCC has invited public comment on (or petitions to deny) the proposal.… Continue Reading
The window opens on December 3 for registering ".tel" domain sites. ".tel" is a new top level domain name that is intended to identify repositories of corporate and personal contact information. As we become increasingly reliant on our Blackberries, iPhones, Palms, Treos and even plain old mobile phones, ".tel" domains are likely to become essential resources for accessing important information that once required a computer or even those old things known as "books".… Continue Reading