Licensing of Radio
Stations:
The FCC licenses low power (100W) noncommercial FM
radio broadcasters and "Non Commercial Educational (NCE)" broadcasters.
KRAW-LP is a noncommercial broadcaster, not an "NCE" broadcaster. "NCE"
stations are explicitely formal educational institutions.
Nonprofit stations may receive contributions
from for-profit entities and are permitted to acknowledge these
contributions or underwriting donations with announcements naming and
generally describing the contributing party or donor. However, nonprofit stations may not broadcast offers to sell on behalf of
for-profit entities.
New Stations:
Before a party can build a new radio station, it first must apply to the FCC for a construction
permit which authorizes it to build and test the station.
After the “construction permittee)
builds and tests the station, it must file a license application in which it
certifies that it has constructed the station consistent with the
technical and other terms specified in its construction permit.
Once the FCC grants the application,
the permittee becomes a “licensee,” which authorizes the
new licensee to operate for a stated period of time, up to eight
years. Stations must renew their licenses before they expire.
Broadcast Programming: Basic Law and
Policy:
The Constitution’s protection of
free speech includes programming that may be objectionable to many
viewers or listeners. The FCC cannot prevent the broadcast of any
particular point of view.
However, there are some restrictions on the
material that a licensee can broadcast. These restrictions are
discussed below.
Licensee Discretion:
The radio licensee generally has
discretion to select what its station broadcasts and to otherwise
determine how it can best serve its community of license.
Criticism, Ridicule, and Humor
Concerning Individuals, Groups, and Institutions:
Freedom of speech protects programming
that stereotypes or may otherwise offend people with regard to their
religion, race, national background, gender, or other characteristics
It also protects broadcasts that
criticize or ridicule established customs and institutions, including
the government and its officials. People must be free to say things
that the majority may abhor, not only what most people may find
tolerable or congenial.
(Please review "community standards" comments.)
If you are offended by a station’s
programming, make your concerns known in writing to the station
licensee.
Station licensees are not required to
broadcast everything that is offered or otherwise suggested to them.
Licensees have no obligation to allow any particular person or group
to participate in a broadcast or to present that person or group’s
remarks.
(See "political broadcasts".)
Broadcast Programming: Law and
Policy on Specific Kinds of Programming:
Hoaxes and news distortion are subject
to Commission regulation.
Hoaxes.
A “crime” is an act or
omission that makes the offender subject to criminal punishment by
law.
A “catastrophe” is a
disaster or an imminent disaster involving violent or sudden events
affecting the public.
The broadcast by a station of false
information concerning a crime or catastrophe if:
▪ The station licensee knew that the information was false;
▪
Broadcasting the false information directly causes substantial public
harm; and
▪ It was
foreseeable that broadcasting the false information would cause such
harm.
The broadcast must cause direct and actual damage to property or to
the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law
enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their
duties, and the public harm must begin immediately.
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If a station airs a
disclaimer before the broadcast that clearly characterizes the
program as fiction and the disclaimer is presented in a reasonable
manner under the circumstances, the program is presumed not to pose
foreseeable public harm.
News Distortion:
Broadcast licensees may not
intentionally distort the news. “Rigging or slanting the news
is a most heinous act against the public interest.”
Objectionable Programming:
Inciting “Imminent Lawless
Action
"Inciting “Imminent Lawless
Action” is:
(1) intended to incite or produce “imminent lawless action;”
and
(2) likely to
“incite or produce such action.”
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Indecent Programming:
Indecent Programming is defined
as “language or material that, in context, depicts or
describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary
community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory
organs or activities.”
Obscene Material.
Obscene material is not protected by
the First Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time.
Obscene material must have all
of the following three characteristics:
▪ An average person, applying contemporary community
standards, must find that the material, as a
whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
▪ The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive
way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law;
and
▪ The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary,
artistic, political, or scientific value.
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Indecent Material is protected by the First Amendment, so its broadcast cannot
constitutionally be prohibited at all times.
Profane Material is defined as
program matter that includes language that is both “so grossly
offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount
to a nuisance” and is sexual or excretory in nature or derived
from such terms.
The broadcast of indecent material
or profane material is
prohibited during times of the day when there is a reasonable
risk that children may be in the audience, which the Commission has
determined to be between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Station Identification.
Stations must air identification
announcements when they sign on and off for the day.
They must broadcast these announcements
every hour, as close to the start of the hour as possible.
Between the call letters and its
community, the station may insert the name of the licensee, the
station’s channel number, and/or its frequency.
It may also include any additional
community or communities, as long as it first names the community to
which it is licensed by the FCC.
Station-Conducted Contests.
A station that broadcasts or advertises
information about a contest that it conducts must fully and
accurately disclose the material terms of the contest and must
conduct the contest substantially as announced or advertised
over-the-air or on the Internet.
Contest descriptions may not be false,
misleading, or deceptive with respect to any material term.
The station conducting the contest must
disclose material terms either through periodic disclosures broadcast
on the station, or written disclosures on the station’s
Internet website.
Soliciting Funds.
No federal law prohibits the broadcast
by stations of requests for funds for legal purposes (including
appeals by stations for contributions to meet their operating
expenses), if the money or other
contributions are used for the
announced purposes.
Broadcast of Telephone
Conversations.
Before broadcasting a telephone
conversation live or recording a telephone conversation for later
broadcast, a station must inform any party to the call of its
intention to broadcast the conversation.
However, that notification is not
necessary when the other party knows that the conversation will be
broadcast or this knowledge can be reasonably presumed, such as when
the party is associated with the station (for example, as an employee
or part-time reporter) or originates the call during a program during
which the station customarily broadcasts the calls.
Tobacco and Alcohol Advertising.
Federal law prohibits the airing of
advertising for cigarettes, little cigars, smokeless tobacco, and
chewing tobacco on radio.
Congress has not enacted any law
prohibiting broadcast advertising of any kind of alcoholic beverage.
The Local Public Inspection File
Requirement to Maintain a Public
Inspection File.
Virtually all licensees and permittees
of TV and radio stations and applicants for new broadcast stations
are required to maintain records that must be made available for
public inspection.
LPFM stations do not have a public
inspection file but are required to maintain a political file.
▪ FCC Authorizations (73.3526(e)(1), 73.3527(e)(1)) (retain
until replaced). These are the instruments issued by the Commission
to individuals or companies that authorize broadcasting or other use
of radio transmissions in connection with broadcasting and include
licenses and permits to construct or modify broadcast facilities.
▪ Ownership Reports and Related Materials (73.3526(e)(5),
73.3527(e)(4)) (retain until a new, complete ownership report is
filed with the FCC).
▪ Political File (73.3526(e)(6), 73.3527(e)(5)) (retain for two
years).
This file must contain all requests for specific schedules of
advertising time by candidates and certain issue advertisers, as well
as the final dispositions or "deals" agreed to by the
broadcaster and the advertiser in response to any requests
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Complaints or Comments About a
Station
Write directly to station management to
comment on their broadcast service.
If your concerns are not resolved,
provide all the information the FCC needs to process your complaint
about other broadcast matters is to fully complete an on-line
complaint at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us. You can
also call in, e- mail or file your complaint in hard copy with the
FCC’s Consumer Center in the following manner:
Email address: fccinfo@fcc.gov
Fax:
(202) 418-0232
Telephone: (888) 225-5322 (voice)
(888) 835-5322 (TTY)
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs
Bureau
Consumer Inquiries and Complaints
Division
45 L Street NE
Washington, D.C. 20554
How to File an Obscenity, Indecency,
or Profanity Complaint.
The fastest and easiest way to file a
complaint on this or any other broadcast issue is to go to the FCC’s
complaint page at
https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us.
Complainants must provide certain
information, including:
(1) the date and time of the alleged broadcast;
(2) the call sign, channel or frequency of the station involved;
and
(3) the details of what was actually said (or depicted) during the
alleged indecent, profane, or obscene broadcast.
Submission of an
audio or video tape, CD, DVD or other recording or transcript of the
complained-of material is not required but is helpful, as is the
specific name of the program, the on-air personality, song, or film,
and the city and state in which the complainant saw or heard the
broadcast.
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