WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC has issued an order that would reduce regulatory fees for broadcasters for the second year in a row. The decision follows a major push in recent years by the NAB and state broadcasting association to reduce the regulatory burden on stations.
Like FY 2023, the FCC calculated regulatory fees for TV stations based on population but reduced the rate to $0.006598. This is down “from the $.007799 per-person-served used for FY 2023 TV regulatory fees,” according to the Common Law Center Blog, which also noted that “Some additional shifts will be caused by FY 2024 fees being the first to incorporate 2020 U.S. Census data into these calculations.”
According to the order issued Sept. 6. the FCC is expecting revenue from the category of digital television of $23,363,518 in FY 2024, down from FY 2023 revenue estimate of $25,463,735.
Radio will also see a decline in rates by about 6% according to Radio World.
Overall, FCC has a revenue requirement of $390,192,000, the same as FY 2023, that needs to be covered by regulatory fees. In contrast to broadcasters, cable TV operators will get a rate hike. They will pay $1.27 per subscriber in FY 2024, up 3.24% from FY 2023 according to Policyband.
While fees are declining for broadcasters, the FCC denied requests by the NAB, state broadcasters, pay TV providers and others that might have further lowered rates.
Once again, the FCC did not move to include YouTube TV and other streamers in its rate calculations even though YouTube TV is now the fourth largest operator with 8 million subs.
The FCC also rejected a proposal by state broadcasters that the Commission adopt new regulatory fee categories for broadband Internet access service providers and manufacturers of equipment that use spectrum on an unlicensed basis.
In FY 2024, the FCC is also discontinuing three relief efforts to help broadcasters. Those three relief efforts were adopted during the pandemic and continued into FY 2023. The NAB and state broadcasters had pushed the FCC to continue them indefinitely.
The Full Order can be found here.
