Client Alert

This year may bring an historic moment – the first time since their advent in which regulatory fees will not have risen. Despite all the harsh things being said about Congress recently, its annual FCC appropriations act specifies that the 2010 fees to be collected are to be 1.8% less than last year.

 

Below are tables and a chart comparing the proposed fees for this year to those assessed in 2009. All fees are to apply to authorizations held as of October 1, 2009. As in the past, the methodology used to calculate individual fees allocates the overall amount among various categories of facilities and then divides the result by the number of authorizations within each category. (A few fees held steady or even rose slightly due to the fewer number of stations of a given type among which a fee category is to be divided.)

The only major change this year is to remove the former exemption for digital TV broadcasting. As a reward for early conversion, last year the FCC imposed a regulatory fee only upon analog TV licenses. With the conversion over, this year all TV licensees are to be assessed a fee. In addition, a uniform fee is to be imposed upon each TV Low Power, Class A, translator or booster facility for which conversion is voluntary so far. Only a single fee will be charged to licensees simulcasting in both analog and digital modes on companion channels. TV fees again will be based upon band (VHF or UHF) and market size.
 

Radio fees are to be determined by service (AM or FM), class of station and estimated population served (still using the 2000 Census). No additional fee is to be imposed upon radio stations’ HD channels.

The Commission again will send each individual broadcast station a pre-billing notice to advise of the assessed fee and the attributes that determine that amount. We assume that, as in the past, the notices will omit auxiliary facilities for which additional fees will be required. The Commission proposes to eliminate this mailed notification in all future years, so that broadcasters will have to rely on the FCC website for the appropriate information.
 

The Commission proposes to require use of its on-line Fee Filer program to begin the payment process, although actual payments may still be made either on line or by mailing payments to the FCC’s lockbox bank in New York City. Fees will be due during a window this August.

Although the Commission invites comments concerning its regulatory fee collection proposals for this year, in all probability it will proceed as proposed. We will provide further details as they become available. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact Peter Gutmann (PGutmann@wcsr.com), or any member of the firm’s Communications Law Group.