Think you’re late in getting those April, 2012 Children’s TV Reports filed? Think again!!!
If you’re a television licensee who didn’t get your April, 2012 children’s TV report (FCC Form 398) filed in time, you’re in luck. The Commission has extended the deadline for that filing from April 10 to April 27.
Didn’t happen to catch the public notice announcing that extension? No surprise there – it appears that, in a demonstration of the Commission’s commitment to transparency, the Commission didn’t bother to issue any announcement. Instead, it buried news of the extension on its not-particularly-user-friendly website.
We’ll make it easy for you: just click on this link, which will take you to the entry in the FCC’s “encyclopedia” providing general information about "Children’s Educational Television Reporting – Form 398". The information appears to be aimed at an audience that has been trapped in a cave for a couple of decades and knows nothing of the kidvid requirements at all. (Sample: “The form [that would be Form 398] identifies the programming that a commercial television station has aired to serve the educational and informational needs of children.”) Keep scrolling down the page to the “Headlines” section (it’s below the list of links headed “Services”, and also the helpful links to the FCC’s “Parents’ Place” and “Kids Zone” sites). There you will find the following under the heading “April 9, 2012”:
During this filing window, some filers reported to us a connectivity problem and some have filed their form successfully. The FCC is aware of the problem and working to resolve it, please be patient.
The FCC has extended the deadline to April 27, 2012. However, continue to try and file your reports during this extended time frame.
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We assume from the "April 9, 2012" heading that this notice (which is quoted in its entirety above) was posted the day before the initial filing deadline. Note that the next most recent entry in the “Headlines” section is dated September 24, 2010, which gives you an idea of how often this particular section gets updated. In other words, it’s something of a mystery why the FCC would expect anybody at all to be checking this particular webpage for useful, current information, but maybe that’s just us.
In any event, as noted above, the FCC’s website is saying that kidvid reports for the first quarter of 2012 can be filed by April 27. You should act accordingly.
