The December 15 deadline for filing the revised Ownership Report (Form 323) for commercial broadcasters has been extended to January 11. According to a terse public notice issued on November 23 (a scant three weeks before the previously-announced December 15 deadline), the extension was granted by the Media Bureau, acting on its own motion. The notice advises that the “Bureau is in the process of conducting final testing of the form and has delayed the release of the electronic version until the testing is complete.” The notice also assures that the Bureau wants to provide “adequate time to prepare and file the report”.
No mention is made, however, of FRN’s, or the requirement that each individual with an attributable interest of any sort obtain and file his/her own FRN as part of the revised ownership reporting process. That requirement – and the unorthodox manner in which it was imposed on the industry – have been the focus of considerable discussion since the revised form was first made public (by OMB, not the FCC). Whether the Commission intends to use the additional time to address that problem remains to be seen.
