FCC Barely Budges on Retransmission Comment Deadlines

The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has only minimally granted the National Association of Broadcaster's request to extend the comment deadline on the FCC's retransmission consent proceeding, only extending the reply comment deadline -- which takes it past the New Year holiday -- and only by two weeks, rather than the several weeks NAB had sought to delay both initial and reply deadlines.

Per a congressional directive, the FCC is reviewing the definition of good-faith retransmission negotiations. The comment deadlines for initial and reply comments had been Dec. 1, 2015 and Dec. 31, 2015, respectively. Saying its members had an incentive auction to focus on, NAB had asked the FCC to move both, to Feb. 1, and March 2, respectively. Instead, the FCC Friday said it would extend the reply deadline by two weeks to Jan. 14. The American Television Alliance had opposed the request, arguing that broadcasters had already had plenty of notice about the proceeding. The Media Bureau agreed, pointing out that it had given commenters 60 days rather than the usual 30 as it was.