Retransmission In Transition? - Comment Deadline Extended

New deadlines: Comments - May 18, Reply Comments - June 3

If you were planning to file comments on the petition proposing overhaul of the retransmission consent process, heads up: less than two weeks after setting the initial comment/reply deadlines, the Media Bureau has extended those deadlines by a month. Comments are now due by May 18, 2010 and reply comments by June 3, 2010. Apparently, when it announced the original deadlines, the Commission failed to notice that the initial comment deadline fell two days after the conclusion of the annual NAB Convention. That factoid did not, however, escape the NAB’s attention. The NAB promptly wrote to the Commission, noting with admirable understatement that the “many concerned parties” who would be attending the show would be handicapped time-wise if the original deadline were not extended. The Bureau was happy to accommodate the NAB in order “to facilitate the development of a full record.”

Retransmission In Transition? - The FCC Seeks Input

Comments on proposed retrans overhaul due April 19

Just a week ago we reported here on a petition, submitted to the FCC on March 9, proposing an overhaul of the retransmission consent process. Now the Media Bureau, acting with impressive speed, has issued a Public Notice inviting comments on the petition. The Notice (released March 19) sets April 19, 2010, as the deadline for initial comments and May 4, 2010, as the deadline for reply comments. The Notice is pure boilerplate and provides no indication at all as to how the Bureau (or the Commission) might feel about the idea of comprehensive changes in retrans consent. However, as we noted in our earlier post, two days after the petition was filed, Chairman Genachowski indicated to Congress that this issue “is a subject that should be looked at seriously”. Put that together with the breakneck speed with which the Bureau has reacted to the March 9 petition and you could reasonably conclude that major changes in the retrans process may be coming sooner rather than later. Stay tuned.