Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.
- The FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing its fiscal year 2026 regulatory fees for its regulated entities, including broadcast stations. The FCC proposes to continue to calculate full-power TV station fees using its population-based methodology and proposes a TV station fee factor of $0.006957 per population served—about a 4.2% increase from fiscal year 2025 ($0.006674). The FCC proposes similar increases in full-power radio station fees, but proposes decreased fees for LPTV, Class A, TV/FM translators, FM boosters, and earth stations (transmit/receive and transmit only). Comments and reply comments responding to the NPRM are due May 28 and June 12, respectively.
- The FCC’s Media Bureau ordered Disney to file its ABC TV stations’ license renewal applications by May 28—years before its stations’ current license expiration dates. While the FCC rules allow the Commission to order a broadcast station to file its license renewal early if review of the renewal application is “essential” to the investigation, the process has not been used in many decades. The Bureau stated that while Disney responded to the FCC’s inquiries during its investigation of its stations’ possible violations of anti-DEI policies, “additional actions are appropriate” to continue its investigation and to decide if Disney was meeting its public interest obligations. At the press conference following last week’s regular monthly FCC Open Meeting, Carr said that Disney’s renewals were called in early after the FCC found that Disney’s DEI inquiry responses were insufficient, and the decision was not related to Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last week (see note below). Commissioner Gomez called the decision “the most egregious action this FCC has taken in violation of the First Amendment.” The NAB issued a statement calling for the FCC to use its regular enforcement processes if it believes that there was a violation of its rules rather than taking this “nearly unprecedented” action that creates uncertainty and instability for the broadcast industry. According to one publication, even Senator Cruz (R-Texas) condemned the action, claiming that the FCC should not be acting as the “speech police.”
- The Bureau also ordered the licensee of numerous Class A, LPTV, and TV translator stations to file its renewals by May 27. The Bureau stated that while the licensee responded to the FCC’s inquiries in an investigation of possible unauthorized transfers of control, the renewals were ordered to be filed early because the FCC believed that “additional actions” by the FCC were warranted so it can conduct its inquiry and assess whether the licensee was operating in the public interest.
- In a third case, the Media Bureau issued a one-year short-term renewal modifying its April 1 order adopting a Consent Decree with a Mississippi AM station. The Consent Decree had been entered into to resolve FCC rule violations revealed during the Bureau’s review of the station’s license renewal – including its failure to upload Quarterly Issues/Programs Lists to its Online Public Inspection File (OPIF). While the Consent Decree planned to grant the station’s renewal for a full 8-year term after it paid a $1,000 voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury, the grant was conditioned on there being no other issues preventing that grant. But the Bureau learned that the station failed to upload its Q1 2026 Issues/Programs List to its OPIF by the April 10 deadline, only 10 days after the approval of the Consent Decree, which had been premised on the station’s future adherence to the rules. Given this new violation so soon after licensee had pledged compliance, the Bureau concluded that a one-year renewal was appropriate.
- National Religious Broadcasters filed a complaint with the FCC against Disney requesting that the FCC investigate and sanction Disney for the broadcast of ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue aired before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (where a gunman allegedly attempted to assassinate President Trump). Kimmel had said: “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have the glow of an expectant widow.” NRB argues that Kimmel’s statement could have been an incitement of violence against the President and was thus not protected by the First Amendment. However, after filing this complaint, the NRB released a second statement expressing its concern about the accelerated Disney renewals, stating that selective enforcement undermines confidence in the system and the clarity and consistency that all broadcasters, including religious broadcasters, need to carry on their operations.
- The FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to amend the Audible Crawl Rule, which requires TV broadcasters to provide an audio description of visual, nontextual emergency information (radar maps or other graphics) displayed during non-newscast programming on a secondary audio stream (the SAP Channel). The FCC proposes dropping the requirement if a station provides a textual crawl on screen with the same information as in the visual image and if the text is aired on the SAP Channel’s audio (as already required for such textual alerts).
- A number of former FCC chairs, commissioners, staff, and public interest groups jointly filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit asking the Court to compel the FCC to act on their November 2025 petition seeking repeal of the FCC’s news distortion policy because the FCC improperly used it to suppress viewpoints critical of President Trump in violation of broadcasters’ First Amendment rights (see our note here). The petitioners claim that FCC Chairman Carr’s post on X stating “How about no” in response to the proposed repeal shows that the FCC refuses to act on the petition. While mandamus petitions are rarely granted and usually require an extraordinary delay in an agency’s action before a court will intervene, the Petitioners argue that this policy may be used to suppress political speech before the upcoming mid-term elections, thus requiring quick action.
- The FCC released a draft Third Report and Order, which if adopted at its May 20 Open Meeting, would streamline Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) filing obligations, which are voluntary for broadcasters. Under FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel, the FCC proposed requiring TV and radio stations to report their operating status during disasters in the FCC’s DIRS database (see our note here). The draft Order does not require broadcasters to file DIRS reports. It does adopt a “one-click” filing option to reduce filing burdens of voluntary DIRS participants including broadcasters.
- The Media Bureau announced that comments and reply comments are due May 27 and June 11, respectively, on Paramount’s petition to exceed the foreign ownership limits of Section 310(b) of the Communications Act – which, absent FCC approval, prohibits foreign entities, individuals, and governments from holding ownership interests of more than 20% in an FCC licensee and more than 25% in a U.S. entity directly or indirectly controlling an FCC licensee. Paramount seeks approval for existing and future foreign investors to hold indirect interests in the company above the 25% statutory benchmark, specific investors from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to hold indirect interests more than 5%, and non-controlling future foreign investors to hold indirect interests up to 20%. Paramount states that granting its petition would increase the company’s access to capital, allowing it to compete more effectively and improve its investments in local news and journalism.
- The Media Bureau granted Scripps/ION Television and Gray Media’s assignment applications proposing to swap several full-power TV, LPTV, and TV translator stations to reduce their national audience reach under the national TV ownership cap and to create top-4 station combinations in the Lansing, MI DMA for Gray, and in the Grand Junction-Montrose, CO; Colorado Springs-Pueblo, CO; and Twin Falls, ID DMAs for Scripps. The Bureau also granted the assignment of Allen Media’s TV stations to Gray in the Huntsville-Decatur (Florence), AL; Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg, MS-IL; Evansville, IN; Lafayette, LA; Rockford, IL; Fort Wayne, IN; and Montgomery-Selma, AL DMAs, resulting in Gray owning two or more TV stations in each market. DIRECTV and several cable and satellite associations argued that, although these applications complied with the Local Television Ownership Rule, the applicants still had to address the transactions’ public interest benefits and harms. Citing its recent approvals of TV station assignment applications where similar arguments were raised (see our notes here, here, and here), the Bureau again found that a special public interest showing was not needed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated the top-4 restriction (see our article here) and that additional arguments about the transactions’ harms were speculative.
- The Media Bureau denied (see here and here) requests to reinstate two new Alabama LPFM stations’ construction permit applications to correct their clerical errors causing their dismissals for violating the FCC’s LPFM application requirements. The Bureau dismissed the applications because one violated the LPFM localism requirements by proposing a transmitter site 560 miles off the North Carolina coast, and the other one violated the LPFM minimum distance separation requirements by proposing the wrong channel. The Bureau affirmed the applications’ dismissals, noting that the FCC’s policies prohibit LPFM applicants from filing curative amendments to correct such clerical errors.
On our Broadcast Law Blog, we published our regular monthly look ahead at upcoming regulatory dates, highlighting dates and deadlines affecting broadcasters in May and early June. These include rulemaking comment deadlines, new lowest unit rate windows and, on June 1, the deadline for uploading Annual EEO Public Inspection File Reports to the online public files of stations in several states.