It's Sept. 16. Do you know where your regulatory fees
are?
The FCC Thursday gave broadcast and cable operators and
other licensees until midnight Friday night to pay up. The deadline was supposed to
be end of day Sept. 14, but the commission on Thursday provided an extra two
days.
By Congressional mandate, the FCC must collect fees from
the licensees it regulates to cover its costs. For 2011, that needs to be
$335,794,000. Stations pay on a sliding scale depending on market size, while
cable operators pay according to sub count.
An FCC spokeswoman said the issue was a "system glitch" in the online filing system. She said that the system was only down briefly, but since it was on the final day, "in fairness to folks who may have tried to access it at a critical, and with enough of a volume of people saying they had trouble logging into the system, we provided the extension to give them a fair opportunity to use fee filer." She said the Friday deadline is "absolute." She also said that if any licensees were assesses a late charge for not filing before Sept. 16, those will be rescinded.
