Development
What stations need to know about fundraising partnerships
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Public media organizations entering into fundraising partnerships with other nonprofits risk steep fines if they fail to comply with FCC rules.
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Public media organizations entering into fundraising partnerships with other nonprofits risk steep fines if they fail to comply with FCC rules.
The organizations oppose changes to disclosure requirements for station leaders and board members.
Stations fear the new rule could discourage board participation.
“This is the nightmare we have been fighting against for years.”
The exemption gives stations two years before they are required to post online public files with the agency.
Learn how the auction will work and what it means for public TV stations and viewers.
The auction’s biggest impact will be on public TV, but a consultant warns that radio could experience fallout.
Consultants say opening bid amounts are unlikely to reflect what stations could actually receive.
An Association of Public Television Stations briefing focused on federal funding prospects and the next steps in the FCC’s 2016 spectrum auction.
Public broadcasters met with FCC Chair Tom Wheeler and other commission officials Monday.
In a ruling issued Friday, the FCC also denied a petition to protect TV translators, which many rural stations use.
Stations have 60 days from receiving bids to declare whether they will participate in the auction, set for mid-2016.
FCC Chair Wheeler said the decision provides “the certainty necessary to proceed apace toward a successful auction in the first quarter of next year.”
Some satellite TV subscribers lack access to news, public affairs and other programming from their state networks.
Maintaining online public files would be too big a burden for some radio stations, pubcasters argue.
A Virginia broadcaster might swap some of its UHF TV channels for VHF during the FCC’s incentive auction and wants a bigger payout than currently proposed.
A forthcoming low-power FM station in Nashville, Tenn., aims to revive the spirit of a Vanderbilt University student-run station.
The workshops will run nationwide between February and May.
The FCC is considering giving public radio stations at least two additional years — and maybe even a complete exemption — from a proposed agency regulation that could soon require other radio stations to start publishing public file records online, the agency said in a recent notice. “We recognize that some radio stations may face financial or other obstacles that could make the transition to an online public file more difficult,” said the FCC, in a notice of proposed rulemaking released December 18. “Accordingly, we believe that it is reasonable to commence the transition to an online public file for radio with stations with more resources while delaying, for some period of time, all mandatory online public file requirements for other stations.”
The online proposal is part of an agency effort to make key station records more easily accessible to the public. Under existing FCC rules, all broadcasters, commercial and noncommercial alike, are required to maintain publicly available files that disclose a variety of information about their operations, including details about their ownership. Commercial stations must also include information about political advertising sales in the public files.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An increasing number of public broadcasters have been contacting the FCC in recent weeks for information about participating in the upcoming spectrum auction, according to commission representatives who spoke at a CPB board meeting here Tuesday. The uptick began after an Oct. 1 report by investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. projected massive paydays for television stations if they sell spectrum to wireless carriers in next year’s congressionally mandated auction. Most pubTV stations, the representatives said, have been asking the FCC for details about transitioning from UHF to VHF channels.