The coming C-Band reallocation process continues, with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issuing a 185-page “Fact Sheet” on the Report and Order in Docket 18-122. Understanding what is coming is important as most broadcasters have at least one dish feeding them. The die is cast. Not even a global pandemic will likely delay […]

The US Department of Labor has amended/updated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). A couple of things affect broadcasters. On January 1, 2020, the “Final Overtime Rule” of the FLSA, amended on September 24, 2019, will go into effect. It may affect someone at your company – especially if that someone may be […]

The FCC regulates a lot more than just broadcasting and cable. Right now, the Commission has begun what may be new rules to share the frequencies used by satellite programmers with other services. Could this be the end of satellite delivered programming? It is currently a hot button topic among radio and television […]

At this time, there is a freeze in effect on new FSS (receive dishes) applications until July, while the FCC determines if there will be band sharing with the 5G industry. Mark Johnson puts out the reasons why this is bad – and why you should tell the FCC how you feel. RE: […]

Navigating the FCC on-line forms is not always easy. Here, Karen Johnson offers some help to walk you through the FCC Form 312, so you can register your C-Band downlink. Need to know how to register your station(s’) C-band downlinks? On April 19, 2018, the FCC instituted a freeze on applications for new […]

Each week seems to raise another “warning” for broadcasters. The industry is well-known for not speaking with one voice on many issues, but satellite reception is one which should have common responses from everyone, according to Karen Johnson. Touting it as “good news,” last Thursday FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that at the […]

According to surveys, the broadcast engineering fraternity is graying out. Yet, with the reduced staffing at many stations and clusters, there are few new folks to train, even if the broadcast engineers had the time to teach their craft to the next generation. Dave Dunsmoor says that is no reason for the older […]

It is quite common for several stations to share one engineer, perhaps only on a contract basis. Even in some larger companies, where there is a fulltime engineer on staff, he may be out at one of many sites when something “happens.” Now what do you do? For a broadcaster, there is nothing […]

Getting air-quality audio back from outside the studio can be a challenge. Mark Shander concludes this series about traditional solutions that work, as well as some ideas that utilize new products and techniques. This time we would like to do a wrap, for now, on our microstudio series. Microstudios are mobile equipment “pods” […]

It is easy to get audio back to the studio: just shout into your cell phone. It might even be intelligible. On the other hand, there are ways to record and transmit clean audio from where news or other events are going on. Mark Shander continues his discussion. Micro-studios are small, often portable, […]