Radio and Television Broadcasting, including Non-Commercial Broadcasting
Including AM, FM, TV, educational, religious and other non-commercial broadcasters
Patton Boggs’ TechComm group represents broadcasters in all facets of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation, transactional work and negotiations. Our clients range in size from major group owners to individual licensees. Our partners have decades of experience working with industry and in government, and include former high-level FCC officials, including a former FCC Chairman, a former FCC General Counsel and a former FCC Media Bureau Chief.
We guide clients, including new companies entering the broadcasting business, on all aspects of broadcast licensing, media ownership limits, political broadcasting, retransmission consent, auctions, compliance and enforcement. We use the depth and breadth of our public policy expertise to help clients effectively participate in major policy rulemakings and legislative initiatives that affect the broadcasting industry. We advise clients on allocation rulemakings (including the current incentive auction debate), technical and operational rules, Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) rules, corporate financing activities (debt and equity investments), foreign ownership determinations, and communications tower compliance. The combined talent of our election law experience with our broadcast experience also allows us to deliver critical advice to broadcast clients during election cycles.
We also advise on broadcasting content matters concerning issues such as indecency, contests, and political advertising. We have negotiated numerous station acquisitions, retransmission consent agreements, tower agreements and local marketing agreements (LMAs) on behalf of licensees, station owners, investors and lenders. We also have negotiated retransmission consent and must-carry agreements on behalf of broadcasters, cable operators and multi-channel video program distributors. In addition to work before the FCC, we represent broadcast station owners in contested matters before the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
We also represent non-commercial broadcasters and assist them with their unique issues, such as educational programming goals, review of underwriting announcements, point determinations for FM stations, non-profit status issues and station upgrades.
Our work in the radio and television broadcasting industry includes:
- Retransmission consent and must-carry negotiations and agreements
- Local marketing agreements (LMA), joint sales agreements (JSA) and time brokerage agreements (TBA)
- Asset purchase agreements, stock purchase agreements and related purchase, sale and merger documents
- Assignments of license and transfers of control
- Licensing
- Requests for Special Temporary Authority (STAs)
- Enforcement actions
- International issues
- Program access
- EEO reporting, compliance and audits
- License renewal
- Station inspections
- Ownership reports
- Foreign ownership analysis
- Media cross-ownership assessment
- Auctions
- Non-commercial FM point determination analysis
- Review underwriting announcements
- Compliance issues for non-commercial broadcasters
- Political advertising
- Lotteries
- Internet gambling advertisements
- Children’s programming requirements
- Regulatory fees
- Tower and siting issues
- Assistance in coordinating with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
- Comparative license renewal proceedings
- Litigation
- Indecency
- Corporate restructuring
- Financial investments in, and lending to, broadcasters
- Due diligence for investors and purchasers of broadcast facilities