TAB’s 2026 FCC Political Broadcast Rules Resources Available to TAB Member Stations

posted on 1.05.2026

As broadcasters move into 2026, TAB reminds member stations that we have a wide variety of tools available to assist station staff with FCC political broadcast rule compliance in what is shaping up to be a busy election year. 

In addition to statewide elections for U.S. Senate and a host of other statewide offices, all 38 Texas congressional seats are up for election as are 16 Texas Senate seats and all 150 seats in the Texas House of Representatives. 

Jan. 14 TAB FCC Political Broadcast Rules Webinar 

To help broadcasters understand their FCC obligations during an election year, TAB is presenting a free webinar for TAB member stations on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at 2 PM CT, to review the FCC’s political broadcast regulations. Registration is for TAB member station staff only, on a first-come, first-served basis as Zoom limits the event to just 100 registrants.

Station staff will be required to provide the station callsign and station email address to be approved.

Register here

This webinar will be recorded and available for online viewing after the live session.

Attorney Scott Flick of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, TAB’s FCC legal counsel, will discuss the FCC’s political broadcast rules as well as laws passed by Congress affecting political broadcast content. This webinar will also cover the additional sponsorship identification requirement for political advertising contained in the Texas Election Code. Among the topics to be discussed: 

• Reasonable Access
• Equal Opportunities
• Lowest Unit Charge
• No Censorship
• News Exceptions to the Rules
• Sponsorship Identification
• Recordkeeping/Disclosure Regarding Political Advertisement Requests

The webinar will last 90 minutes and includes time for Q&A from webinar attendees. Station staff should take advantage of this opportunity to get a better understanding of the FCC’s political rules before the commission’s political window goes into effect.

Jan. 17 FCC Political Window and January Campaign Finance Reporting Dates 

The FCC-mandated political window for the Tuesday, March 3 Texas Republican and Democratic Party primary elections opens Saturday, Jan. 17. 

The date is important because most of the FCC’s political broadcast rules apply during the political window, including the application of lowest unit charge for political broadcast time as placed by candidates or their authorized representative.

Candidates for these elective offices have upcoming campaign finance reports due this month. The reports detail dollars raised and spent during a specific period, as well as remaining cash on hand totals.

Candidates for statehouse and non-federal statewide races must file their semiannual campaign finance reports with the Texas Ethics Commission by Thursday, Jan. 15. These cover the period from July 1-Dec. 31, 2025.

Texas candidates for federal office such as the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives must file year-end campaign finance reports with the Federal Elections Commission by Saturday, Jan. 31. As the name suggests, these reports cover all of 2025.

TAB Political Update Emails 

TAB Political Update emails, a members-only station resource for nearly 15 years, are regular email dispatches to TAB member stations containing Texas political race news and background information on the March party primary elections and the November general election. These emails detail competitive primary and general election races, from the candidates running for an office, to the campaign factors that might affect the outcome of those political contests. TAB is the only state broadcast association that prepares a report of this depth and type for its member stations.

The emails go to TAB member station GMs, GSMs LSMs and NDs. At a station’s request, TAB also adds specific station staff handling political advertising or news coverage to the email distribution list.

If there are specific individuals at your station overseeing political advertising or political/election news coverage who should be on the distribution list, forward their name and email to TAB and they will be added to the distribution list.

Other TAB Member Station Resources for the Election Year

TAB has created a special page in the Members-Only portion of the TAB website to provide a full suite of resources to assist stations with the FCC’s political broadcast obligations. It’s called the TAB Political Toolkit and station staff may access it here.   

The TAB Political Toolkit includes:

• TAB’s legal guide to the FCC’s Political Broadcast Rules
• TAB’s Political Forms
• TAB’s 2026 Political Dates and Offices Up for Election Primer 

Once it becomes available, a recording of next week’s TAB FCC Political Broadcast Rules webinar will be added to this TAB member services cache of political broadcast tools. If you have not used the Members section of the TAB website before, you will be prompted to set up your account to access these resources.

Additionally, the TAB legal hotline is available for Texas broadcasters’ routine questions on compliance with the FCC’s political broadcast regulations.

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

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