FCC Releases Regulatory Fee Schedule, With No Freeze On Radio Fees But Additional Payment Flexibility

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The FCC's Report and Order establishing its regulatory fee structure for Fiscal Year 2020 does not, as broadcast industry groups had hoped, freeze the fees for radio broadcasters in light of the Commission's appropriation not increasing from FY 2019 and the Media Bureau adding only one full-time employee this year. In the order, the Commission noted that it is "statutorily obligated to recover the amount of its appropriation through regulatory fees, (meaning) these fees are a zero-sum situation" that requires fees to be raised on other licensees to make up the difference. It also added that the methodology for determining the fees includes not only the overall appropriation and full-time employee count but also an increase in allocation percentage and an increase in the percentage of direct full-time employees being allocated to Media Bureau fee categories, plus a drop (by 180) in the number of radio broadcasters.

The radio licensee fees range from a low of $975 for Class A AMs serving populations under 25,000 to a high of $20,925 for FM classes B, C, C0, C1, and C2 serving populations over 6 million. The fees are lower than proposed in the Notice of Proposed Rule Making after correcting for a computational error.

NAB SVP/Communications ANN MARIE CUMMING said, “NAB believes strongly that the Commission’s methodology for calculating regulatory fees is deeply flawed and would not survive judicial review. However, we very much appreciate Chairman PAI and his staff correcting certain errors in the proposal’s original calculations to result in reduced fees for many radio broadcasters. NAB urges the Commission to convene stakeholders to take a closer look at its approach to regulatory fees to ensure they are fairly and equitably applied for all entities that utilize Commission resources.”

The Commission also set forth more lenient filing, payment, and waiver request filing requirements for this year due to the pandemic, with extended payment terms including installment payments and a reduced interest rate.

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