FCC Moves February Meeting

The FCC has moved up its February public meeting due to the possibility of another government shutdown.

The Feb. 21 meeting has been moved to Feb. 14 since the FCC is currently funded the continuing resolution that runs through Feb. 15, according to the FCC.

The FCC's Jan. 30 meeting will be a pro forma affair since the items were moved off the agenda last week, when it was not clear whether the shutdown would be over by then. The FCC is required to hold one public meeting per month.

Those items were moved to the Feb. 21 meeting, which is now Feb. 14.

The FCC has also extended all its filing deadlines, given that its "filing window, mail operations, and electronic filing systems" were unavailable during the shutdown.

Originally it was going to make filings due on the first business day following the resumption of normal operations, which would have been Tuesday, Jan. 29. Those will now be due Jan. 30. That includes extending the expiration of special temporary authorities (STAs) unless they are related to the post-incentive auction broadcast repack.

The FCC said it would issue further guidance on revised filing deadlines, so asks folks who were going to submit filings asking for relief from filing deadlines not to file until they get that further guidance.

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.