2019 FCC Biennial Ownership Reports Due in January

posted on 11.25.2019

Many broadcasters mark their calendars for the coming year noting important FCC deadlines.  Indeed, TAB compiles such a calendar every year which it posts online at www.tab.org

On occasion, however, those deadline dates are changed by the FCC as the year progresses.  Such is the case for the FCC’s 2019 Biennial Ownership Report.

If the original filing deadline of Dec. 2 had held, there would be more than a few broadcasters scrambling to get the report filed by next Monday.  But broadcasters got word of an almost two-month reprieve from the FCC in September.

All licensees of commercial and noncommercial AM, FM, full-power TV, Class A Television and Low Power Television stations must now submit their ownership reports by Jan. 31, 2020.

While the due date changed, Form 323 (commercial) and Form 323 E (noncommercial) reports must still reflect information as of Oct 1, 2019.  The FCC’s filing window opened earlier this month.

In releasing its September 17 order establishing the delay, the FCC’s Media Bureau said it was implementing “additional technical improvements” to its filing system.

In an article at the CommLawCenter blog, attorney Lee Petro of TAB’s FCC legal counsel Pillsbury Winthop Shaw Pittman said the FCC “modified its filing system to permit parties to validate and resubmit previously-filed ownership reports, so long as those reports were submitted through the current filing system.”

The improvements will allow filers to copy and then make changes to information included in a previously submitted report.  Petro notes the FCC has created a new search page dedicated solely to reviewing submitted ownership reports.

Questions? Contact TAB’s Michael Schneider or call (512) 322-9944.

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