Washington Beat

The National Association of Broadcasters Leadership Foundation (NABLF) is now accepting entries for the 2025 Celebration of Service to America Awards. The awards honor the critical role local TV and radio stations play in communities across the country.

A Class A FM radio station serving a community to the west of Corpus Christi, Tex., in August 2024 was handed a proposed financial penalty for its late filing of license renewal forms with the FCC. Now, this FM is off the hook because it was the Commission's fault.

Brett Guthrie has stepped in to take the role previously held by retired Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). The new House E&C Committee Chairman has revealed who the chief counsels for the 119th Congress will be for the House E&C's various subcommittees.

Chalk up another buccaneer of broadcasting in the Boston area that's landed on the FCC Enforcement Bureau's radar, putting a landlord of a property in the community of Dorchester on notice that an unlicensed FM must cease operations or face a steep fine.

The Radio Pirate of Mattapan is an individual the FCC wants stopped. It's warned the audio buccaneer's landlord that they must stop, or will pay the price for the unauthorized FM activity one can hear in a South Boston neighborhood.

Rep. Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, Chairman-Elect of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has announced the Committee’s Senior Staff members for the 119th Congress. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce senior staff will work under the direction of Staff Director Megan Jackson and Deputy Staff Director Sophie Khanahmadi.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) has delivered a farewell address on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, concluding her tenure in Congress.

In an essay distributed on New Year's Eve, soon-to-depart FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel discusses the agency's work across 2024 expanding access to communications, "building a digital future that works for all, protecting consumers and going after bad actors, and the FCC’s commitment to security and public safety."

Thanks to the "PIRATE Act," the FCC is able to go after landlords of buildings found to be the origin point for unlicensed radio stations. Now, an individual who owns a property in a small city north of Dayton, Ohio, has been warned to stop the buccaneer broadcasts coming from the site.

The FCC has sent a warning to the purported operators of a pirate radio station to cease operations. Where this buccaneer is may surprise some.

The Chief of the Media Bureau's Audio Division has signed a Consent Decree that concludes the Commission's investigation into a change in control for a group of Arizona radio stations that was made without the agency's OK. A civil penalty is being paid to the U.S. Treasury to put the matter to rest.

The agenda for the final Open Commission Meeting of the FCC under the leadership of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has been revealed. And, the affair will be a largely ceremonial opportunity focused on presentations touting the agency's work under her tenure, set to end on January 20.

The voluntary limited use of FM booster stations to originate content — the lynchpin to GeoBroadcast Services' "ZoneCasting" technology — is days away from being fully allowed, thanks to the publication of the FCC's Second Report and Order on Consideration in the Federal Government's publication of record.

A 10kw daytime-only AM radio station serving Clovis, N. Mex., from across the state line in Texas, faces a license revocation hearing should it not resolve its highly delinquent regulatory fees owed to the FCC.

After months of advocacy from broadcasters, legislators, and the public, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act has failed to gain inclusion in the final major legislation of the 118th Congress, the Continuing Resolution aimed at averting a government shutdown. It is now up to the incoming GOP-controlled U.S. government to move ahead with the bill.