Enforcement Relief for "Student-run" NCE Stations
New Media Bureau policy opens door for reduced fines for first-time violators of some paperwork rules.
The FCC’s enforcement actions often leave us shaking our heads wondering if the bureaucracy recognizes the challenges faced in real life by those it regulates. But occasionally there are rays of hope. Case in point: the Media Bureau has revised its policy for enforcing certain paperwork obligations against student-staffed noncommercial educational (NCE) radio broadcast stations. The revised policy provides an opportunity for such stations to avoid crushing forfeitures which could end up shutting the stations down.
Last July, we blogged about the stifling impact of the FCC’s forfeitures on student-operated stations. Because of frequent student staff turnover, such stations can be prone to rule violations, which in turn result in steep forfeitures often amounting to a substantial portion of -- indeed, sometimes even more than -- the station’s annual budget. That happens when the fine is based on the Commission’s schedule of “standard” forfeitures even without any upward adjustments.
While some stations hit with fines have argued to the Commission that their budgets can’t sustain the forfeiture amount, the FCC has historically ignored such claims. Instead, it has looked to the resources of the entire educational institution, rather than just the station itself, presumably (but unrealistically) assuming that the institution would pay up. Unfortunately, as we reported in our earlier post here,even though many institutions do pay up, the threat of further severe regulatory enforcement has apparently led some institutions to sell their stations, thereby eliminating opportunities for entry and training of young people in the art of broadcasting.
But now the Bureau has a new policy.
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FiberTower loses again. The 
If 
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A relatively obscure Audio Division .jpg)
Earlier this month 
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Late last year 
Your cell phone rings. You pause the movie, untangle from your significant other, and stride across the room to answer it. “Hello there!” says the cheerful recorded voice. “We’re calling about your credit card! Are you paying too much interest?”
It’s March! Spring is right around the corner, the excitement of college hoops is in the air, and you only have a few weeks left to come up with a clever April Fools’ Day prank to play on your coworkers. (If you’re short on novel – and safe – ideas, 
It's that time again. The 
It appears that the Commission may have taken the first steps – baby steps carefully cloaked from public view, perhaps, but steps nonetheless – toward addressing its hopeless backlog of broadcast complaints. In a series of super-low-key actions in recent weeks, the Media Bureau has quietly cancelled a number of previously assessed forfeitures. The actions have been reflected in terse (and we do mean terse – 
Despite the promise of ubiquitous cell phone coverage, we are all too familiar with the dreaded phenomenon of dead spots. Historically, cell users frustrated by that phenomenon often fought back by using signal boosters that receive and re-transmit cell phone signals to improve coverage. Recognizing the obvious desirability of boosters, but concerned about their potential for interference, the 
Full-service and Class A TV licensees take heart! The Media Bureau may have let many of you off the hook with respect to one component of the online public inspection file requirement. In particular, 
If you’re a telecommunications carrier or interconnected VoIP provider, now’s the time to get out your calendar, turn it to early February or so, and mark in big red letters: “
Last January, we wrote about 
The FCC has requested comment on a 
Many, probably most, FCC licenses are not held by individuals. Rather, they’re held by organizations – corporations, or their near relations, limited liability companies, and the like. You might assume that corporate law protects individual shareholders in the FCC’s regulatory sphere in the same way that it does in the court system.
Another sign of the season – the hurricane and wildfire season, that is. The Commission has issued its by-now-annual 
Universities, hospitals, hotels, apartment complexes, office buildings, even prisons. Don’t look now, but you might have signal leakage problems that could get you into serious trouble with the FCC.
Suppose you receive a Forfeiture Order from the FCC demanding a large check for allegedly violating FCC rules, as happened to Jerry and Deborah Stevens back in 2010. And suppose you want to raise a challenge. When and where do you do that?
The FCC regulates most digital devices, which nowadays include almost anything having an on/off switch. Non-compliance can have unpleasant consequences. 
It’s important not to lose sight of the Little Things. Your primary operating license? That’s a Big Thing. You know where that stands, and you make sure that everything about it is in good order. But how about your auxiliary licenses – studio-transmitter links (STLs), remote pickups, that sort of thing? Those Little Things may seem like unimportant incidentals in the greater scheme of your operation, but heads up: the FCC doesn’t share that perception.
Even if you comply with all the big rules, sometimes the little rules will turn around and bite you..jpg)
The Janet Jackson case is, for all intents and purposes, finished. 
You’ve read his stuff, and you’ve probably wondered – who is this Man of Mystery they call the Swami? Now you can hear him and see him as he expounds, with customary eloquence, about the Supreme Court decision in 
[Blogmeister’s Note: As 
It looks like we may all be going on another spin around the Indecency Merry-Go-Round. The 
The FCC has demanded $25,000 from a licensee who failed to make a “voluntary contribution” which it had committed to pay as part of a consent decree (i.e., a settlement agreement in an enforcement proceeding). That earlier payment wasn’t made because the licensee said it didn’t have the $8,000 which it had promised to pay. Tough, says the FCC – mere financial distress will not justify relief if you break your promise..jpg)
Local marketing agreements – a/k/a LMAs or Time Brokerage Agreements or TBAs (among other catchy titles) – have been a common feature of the broadcast landscape for a couple of decades now. The regulatory boundaries relative to LMAs have become reasonably well established, at least as far as commercial stations are concerned.
When it comes to main studio site compliance and Longley-Rice, the Media Bureau’s Audio Division is sticking to its guns. As 
The telephone rule strikes again! Back in February of last year, we thought 
In a 
The FCC has always been friendly to electronics hobbyists, in part (we suspect) because many of the FCC’s engineers got their own start that way. A lot of hobbyists get their start, in turn, by assembling commercial kits, before moving on to design and build their own gear from scratch. 
The 
Long-time readers will recall the individual who, as of last July, had been turned down by the FCC 
The thinning of the ranks of Class A TV stations continues. We reported recently that the 
Last month we posted about 
For the second time in less than a year, the FCC has moved against a manufacturer of audio gear for violation of its “digital device” rules.
The FCC has always been interested in preventing interruptions to telephone service. Usually it focuses on failures due to natural disasters, and plain old equipment breakdowns. But now it has a new concern: deliberate service stoppages implemented at the request of a state or local government. Yes, it sounds like something out of protests in the Middle East. But it happened at least once in the United States, and now 
The FM Translator Tango. Always a complicated dance. Some may have figured that it was a harmless pastime, a no-lose bet with zero downside and nothing but upside. 
Almost three years ago 
We reported last year on FCC citations against convenience store chains 
Despite the fact that the Commission has itself acknowledged, repeatedly, that the Internet is an important, maybe even “critical”, resource for job-seekers, broadcasters with jobs to offer had better not rely on the Internet alone when recruiting for those jobs. If they do, they’re looking at a fine that could run into five digits. Ask a couple of licensees – one in 
If you’re a broadcast licensee thinking about conducting a contest for your audience, heads up. The Commission has just made clear that it expects you to get the prizes into the winners’ hands “promptly”. The failure to do so – or maybe the failure to promote the fact that you’re going to do so (the FCC’s reasoning on this point isn’t a model of clarity) – could cost you an extra $4,000. 
If you’re looking for evidence of the Commission’s ambivalence toward “shared services arrangements” involving TV operations, look no further than a 
The November 7, 2011 edition of the Federal Register contained what appeared at first blush to be a 
As 
We reported a couple of days ago on 
Here’s a helpful tip: If an FCC inspector stops by your station, notices something amiss, and tells you to turn your station off, you’re probably better off following that particular instruction. About $7,000 better off, it looks like. Don’t take our word for it – just ask the licensee of a low power FM station in Dunnellon, Florida.
It’s been a tough year so far for FM translator licensees, who have seemed repeatedly to get stuck at the back of the line – behind, in particular, 
A couple-three years ago, 
We have movement on the local public inspection file front!
Here in Washington, we’re used to a certain amount of hypocrisy. It’s part of the atmosphere, like exhaust fumes from the high school tour buses.
Earlier this month .jpg)
The FCC fined a man named John Hays $15,000 for operating a Citizens Band radio without a license.
The market for a reasonably-priced time machine has probably expanded a bunch with the issuance of a 
It turns out that, sometimes, the job’s not over even after the paperwork is done. An AM licensee found that out the hard way when it got slapped with 
A couple of weeks ago 
Folks trying to get their way at the Commission routinely engage in what we professionals refer to as “ex parte” contacts – which usually consist of face-to-face, one-on-one meetings with Commissioners or Commission staff. Such meetings theoretically provide an up close and personal opportunity for the outside party to pitch its side of some issue to the regulators.
Like a hard-core poker player on a losing streak, the Commission isn’t going to let a recent string of defeats on the indecency front discourage it. Au contraire, the FCC’s going double-or-nothing, putting all its chips in and looking to Lady Luck for a change in fortune: 
In our experience, broadcasters respond to catastrophes with incredible humanity, offering help wherever and whenever possible. As the horrific stories and images from earthquake- and tsunami-devastated Japan continue seemingly unabated, broadcast stations may want to undertake fund-raising efforts to support relief efforts. The FCC clearly does not want to do anything to discourage such laudable humanitarian impulses. However, rules are rules – and the Commission’s rules (Sections 
With less-than-subtle timing, the 
Five years ago I was quoted in 
The FCC has reviewed its interpretation of a rule that some parties found to be unhelpfully vague. In refusing to make changes, the FCC has left those affected uncertain of their obligations.
Cell phone jammers are illegal in the United States. 
FCC enforcement procedures continue to baffle us.
Are you a “citizen solver”? Do you want to become one?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has handed the FCC another set-back on the indecency front. A unanimous panel of the Court has issued 
The Media Bureau celebrated the end of 2010 (or maybe the arrival of 2011) by serving warning that, for every single full-time job opening – no exceptions – broadcasters must notify multiple recruitment sources that are likely to refer applicants from diverse backgrounds. Exclusive reliance on over-the-air announcements and Internet postings will not do the trick. Neither will reliance on word-of-mouth or unsolicited walk-ins standing alone. And, of course, all notification activities (and other recruitment minutiae) must be documented in the annual EEO report that stations place in their public inspection file on the anniversary of their renewal application filing.
As 
March 31, 2010, was probably not a good day for Daniel Smith, the individual licensee of a stand-alone FM in scenic Belle Plain, Kansas (just a hop, skip, and 26-mile jump down the road from Wichita). That’s when the folks from the Enforcement Bureau arrived to inspect his station. Seven months later, he’s looking at a 
Don’t be lending the FCC any money if you need to get paid back before mid-October, at the earliest. The 
As 
A Maryland FM station jumped the gun on its own contest back in June, 2008 – and it looks like 
Having occasionally criticized the FCC for what might be perceived as over-enforcement – 
Not quite two years ago, 
Now that the initial hoopla attendant to the release of the 
A big chunk is missing from the armor of 
In a huge win for broadcasters and First Amendment-loving citizens, the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
Last week 
Grab your rod, bait your hook, put on your floaties – and don’t forget the sunscreen – it looks like we’re all going on a fishing expedition, thanks to the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau!
The FCC has issued official warnings – “citations,” they call them – against eight wireless phone companies, alleging failure to file certain reports relating to compatibility of handsets with hearing aids. Seven of the companies indeed look like wireless service providers. Actually we don’t know that for sure, but at least their names include words like “wireless” and “cellular.”
A couple of weeks ago 
Spectrum warehousing – the practice of acquiring spectrum and then sitting on it, unused. Maybe because you don’t want your competitor(s) to have it, maybe because you can’t afford to do anything with it just now, maybe for other reasons. Whatever may be the case, the FCC has historically frowned on the practice. The Commission figures that once authority to use spectrum has been issued, that spectrum should be used.
Of the many, many tasks which the FCC has set for itself in its National Broadband Plan (NBP), attentive readers may have noted one in particular. At page 86 of the NBP, the FCC committed to “accelerat[ing] efforts to ensure that WCS [Wireless Communications Service] spectrum is used productively for the benefit of all Americans.” We had to smile at the use of the word “accelerate” in this context since the FCC has been doing precisely nothing for the last 13 years to bring this spectrum to productive use. In fact, in contravention of its own rules it has been sitting on applications for almost three years which could already have been providing innovative WCS service. The NBP is striking in that regard, since it repeatedly fails to acknowledge how the Commission’s own inaction and irresolution have often stymied, thwarted or delayed the very objectives which the FCC now claims to be so urgently needed..jpg)
We have written elsewhere
(Author’s note: Last November I posted an item here improvidently titled “
As my colleague Mitchell Lazarus concisely analyzed 
In the latest of a growing line of cases, the Commission’s 
Two months ago we 
Two months ago we 
The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has dropped two notices of apparent liability (NALs, in the vernacular) – each to the tune of $15,000 – on Birach Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). According to the NALs, BBC improperly handed control of its two Michigan AM stations over to the stations’ respective time brokers. The FCC also dinged BBC for failing to staff each station’s main studio with a BBC managerial employee and a BBC staff-level employee. You can read the NALs 
This is another in our continuing series on 
Most companies are content to lose a case once or twice. But some don’t get the message, and just keep on running up against the wall.
You know those pesky penalties the cell phone companies impose when you cancel your service before the contract period has expired? How they keep you from switching providers even when the service turns lousy or the competition offers a better deal? Or a better phone? To folks in the biz, those are referred to as Early Termination Fees (ETFs), and they’re back under the FCC’s microscope.
Depending on who you ask, 2010 may or may not be the start of a new decade. Depending on who answers, 2010 may or may not be the start of a new FCC. That’s because the FCC is relying on you (and you and you, the guy in the brown shoes reading this during his lunch break) to help decide on the direction in which the agency should be moving. They’ve labeled this process “Reboot.FCC.Gov” and, like all the kids are doing nowadays, they’ have not only set up a website at that domain, but also tied the whole thing together with the Blogging, and the Twittering and the Facebooking and the YouTubing (there’s a bunch of other social media connections as well, including, for some reason MySpace, in case the next big indie band wants to participate).
On January 14, just beating the expiration of the statute of limitations to punish offenders, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau issued a spate of fines and citations against companies which had failed to file Hearing Aid Compatibility (HAC) Reports. While the Bureau’s actions to some extent targeted the usual suspects (equipment vendors and carriers), they also, perhaps unwittingly, threatened a vast new class of businesses with regulation and enforcement actions. And by doing that, the Bureau also may have started a domino effect likely to lead to the elimination of the near-ubiquitous availability of prepaid phones and phone cards.
The FCC has proposed rules providing for an annual test of the national alert capability of the broadcast Emergency Alert System (EAS). What’s more, all EAS participants in the country will have to tell the FCC whether they received the test, whether they retransmitted it, and if not, what went wrong.
Here in Washington, regulatory agencies – the FCC is an excellent example – announce official decisions in written orders or public notices. But those official documents are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the nitty-gritty task of regulating. Much more agency business goes on informally, in meetings and phone calls between agency staffers and lawyers like us..jpg)
One of the things that gripes an awful lot of people is the so-called early termination fee, or ETF, which you have to pay if you try to cancel your cellphone contract before two years are up. It is usually about $200, so if you are a Verizon customer drooling to get an iPhone, you are out of luck and can’t move over to AT&T unless you are willing to pay the piper’s penalty.
Last month 
They think big in Texas, and they think independent in Texas, and so it should be no surprise that an FM radio operator was not impressed when the Feds arrived at his doorstep. Some FCC agents claimed that the operator – one Raymond Frank – was lacking some piece of paper or other from some agency Back East in Washington, but Mr. Frank knew better. No “pirate broadcaster” he – no, he was operating strictly within the boundaries of the Republic of Texas, and so was not subject to the laws of the Yoo-nited States or any little ol’ FCC. (Frank also argued that the FCC’s rules violate the First Amendment. But if Frank was not a U.S. Citizen – being as how he claimed Republic of Texas citizenship and all – that argument may have been a tad inconsistent, but we digress.)
Back in September we 
In a speech this morning, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced his intention to initiate a proceeding looking to the adoption of new rules designed to preserve and enhance the “openness” of the Internet, in accordance with the principles of “network neutrality.” (You can read the speech 
In the midst of wildfire season in California and hurricane season on the coasts, the Commission has issued a 
As we all know, last April the 
FCC rules have the force of law. That means people who violate them are subject to a fine.
We 
The Commission has added to the lexicon of things you can’t say on the radio, if you’re a noncommercial broadcaster and you’re referring to people or companies who have provided you with underwriting support. We last alerted our readers to the issue of prohibited “advertisements” in a 
I think broadcasters have let the record companies put them on the defensive by establishing a one-sided framework for the public discussion of the performance royalty issue. And that may be why broadcasters seem to be having trouble in the struggle with record companies over that issue. Maybe it’s time to change that framework.
In a decision which comes as no real surprise, the 
Do you know what constitutes an antenna farm? 
Just because the fortune-teller got it right does not necessarily mean that we have to like it when the accurately-predicted future becomes present reality. Like when we 
The FCC has hit up a manufacturer of personal computer TV tuner cards for a $175,000 forfeiture. Why? Because the manufacturer marketed cards that have only analog and not digital tuning capability. The 
The Enforcement Bureau has come down hard – very hard – on a low power FM station for broadcasting thousands of prohibited advertisements over the course of some 14 months. Total fine specified in the 
Editors' Note: Let’s be honest. The first day on a new job usually stinks. Everything’s new and different. Everybody’s trying to weasel up to your good side. Big and Important Stuff definitely needs to get done, but right out of the box it can be hard to tell the Big and Important Stuff from the Totally Unnecessary and Possibly Counterproductive Stuff. 
The concept of “harmful interference” is central to FCC spectrum policy. The FCC has never said just what the term means. Oddly, though, that might be a good thing.
In what has to have been an unprecedented farewell kiss-off by any Chairman, on January 19, 2009, now-former FCC Chair Kevin Martin (who exited the Furnitureship with the inauguration of Barack Obama) appears to have caused the Enforcement Bureau to issue 28 separate notices of apparent liability (NALs) and three forfeiture orders, all directed to cable companies, seeking an aggregate of more than $500,000 in fines. (We won’t bother to link to each of the separate orders – but you can find links to them at the 
With the release of six notices of apparent liability (NAL) at the very tail end of 2008, the FCC has given us a glimpse of what EEO enforcement is likely to look like for the foreseeable future. And the outlook is what you might expect: continued emphasis on detailed record-keeping despite the absence of any indication that any unlawful employment discrimination has occurred..jpg)
On Friday, December 12, .jpg)
Products today come with dozens of warnings that few people actually read. If the item includes digital circuitry – almost everything does, nowadays – the manual is supposed to include a warning mandated by the FCC. Digital circuits emit radio waves as by-product, and so have the potential to cause interference to radio communications. The FCC not only sets limits on these stray emissions, but also mandates specific warning text for the product’s instruction manual. The required wording first alerts the user to the possibility of interference. The warning for consumer devices (“Class B,” in FCC-speak) goes on to suggest specific ways to fix interference to radio or TV reception. The text for commercial and industrial devices (“Class A”) just warns against operating in residential areas.
The FCC has .jpg)
With much ballyhoo, on December 9 