FCC Extends Fee Filing Deadline to Midnight Friday

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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 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 Congressionally 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 spokesperson was checking at press time on why the extension was necessary, but the commission is migrating files to a tree-saving, online-only system.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.