Biennial Ownership Reports Due No Later Than December 1

The FCC began accepting biennial ownership reports from broadcasters on October 1, and the two-month filing window to file the report will end December 1, 2021.  All commercial and noncommercial broadcast stations must file a biennial ownership report with the FCC.  Only low power FM stations, TV translator stations, and FM translator stations are exempt from the requirement.

For those that have not yet filed, we note that the FCC’s Licensing and Management System for electronically filing the report is periodically behaving erratically, either ending a session unexpectedly or slowing down during a session.  With a special filing window for new NCE-FM stations between November 2-9, LMS will likely be taxed to keep up with the number of filings. Don’t wait until the end of the two-month window either.  That is prime time for procrastinators racing to complete reports, and the rush can crash the system.

On a related side note, if broadcasters filed a “certification” report in 2019 confirming that there were no changes to an earlier filed report, and now want to file another “certification” of no change report, the file number of the earlier filed report (not the 2019 report) must be specified in the form.

Detailed information on the ownership report forms and requirements can be reviewed at this link.