Does your broadcast media station air any programming provided by a foreign government or their representatives via a leased time arrangement?
New FCC sponsorship identification requirements are now in effect — effective today.
A March 15, 2022 compliance date of sponsorship identification requirements was enacted by the Commission.
It comes 11 months after the FCC unanimously adopted the rules in a move it says “increases transparency, ensuring audiences are aware when a foreign government, or its representatives, uses the airwaves to persuade the American public.”
The rules are effective immediately for new leasing agreements.
For operators including Arthur Liu-controlled Multicultural Radio Broadcasting; retired attorney John Garziglia; and Pete Schartel, the new rules will need to be implemented within six months from publication in the Federal Register.
In prepared comments, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, “With the adoption of these rules, the FCC took action to bring more transparency to foreign government-sponsored programming airing on public airwaves. In light of recent events, this effort—which is all about transparency—has taken on new importance. It is essential that audiences know when a broadcast station has been compensated to air content coming from a foreign government.”
Indeed, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia triggered calls for WZHF-AM and the FM translator it uses, owned by Garziglia, to cease its 24/7 broadcasts of Sputnik Radio, the English-language service of the Voice of Russia. Schartel-owned KCXL-AM in the Kansas City market, which airs Sputnik Radio from 6-9am and again from 6-9pm, was also indirectly finger-pointed in those calls for squelching Sputnik, which came from industry leaders including new NAB head Curtis LeGeyt.
Schartel has been vocal in defending what he believes is his First Amendment right to free speech, assailing LeGeyt for his request for censorship.
Although U.S. law restricts foreign governments and their representatives from holding a broadcast license directly, foreign governmental entities can and do purchase time on domestic broadcast stations. This includes the BBC, with World Service programming heard on noncommercial educational stations across the U.S. on both radio and television.
In the days of shortwave radio, such agreements were rare, as broadcasts from such nations as Libya could be heard in the U.S. if one were to tune to the 49 meter band some 35 years ago, when tensions between America and Libyan leader Mu’ammar Al-Qadhdhāfī were at their height.
Today, shortwave radio has made a comeback in Ukraine and is still widely used across Africa. Hence, distribution of foreign programming via AM and FM in the U.S. is a modern-day workaround for Moscow.
This explains why the new rules are getting outsized attention, considering the number of radio station actually airing programming such as Sputnik Radio numbers no more than a handful.
In fact, Beijing-funded broadcasts targeting Southern Californians were punted in 2020 after the FCC rejected permission from a Los Angeles-area broadcast entity to use XEWW-AM 690 in Tijuana, Baja California, to primarily target Mandarin-speaking consumers in the U.S.
The demise of URadio led former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to take action. In September 2020, he introduced the NPRM that had led to the enforcement of new FCC rules requiring on-air disclosure for broadcast programming aired through a leased airtime agreement sponsored by any entity or individual that is a foreign government, a foreign political party, an agent acting on behalf of such entities, or a U.S.-based foreign media outlet based on definitions drawn from the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 and the Communications Act of 1934. It amended section 73.1212 of the Commission’s rules
In addition, if a station is airing foreign government-provided programming pursuant to a lease agreement, it is now required to include such disclosures in its Online Public Inspection File.
As of today, this will be needed by Liu, Garziglia and Schartel, each of whom have snubbed LeGeyt and Democratic Members of Congress in continuing to air Sputnik Radio.
