WASHINGTON—After issuing audit letters seeking Equal Employment Opportunity data from a randomly selected group of TV and radio stations in August, the Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau has issued a notice extending the deadline for responses to October 17, 2025.

Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits. A list of the radio and television stations selected for the 2025 audit, as well as the text of the Aug. 8 audit letter, is available here.

The FCC had originally asked for replies by Sept. 22, a deadline that has now been extended to Oct. 17.

The FCC also clarified some aspects of the data it was seeking to collect and the process for submitting data.

The FCC noted that "regarding paragraph two of the audit letter requesting certain audit data from respondents, EB issues the following additional guidance for questions 2(b)(vi)(a-b), (vii-viii) (the Inquiries). In coordination with the Media Bureau, EB finds that, in order to protect privacy and confidential business information from public disclosure, pursuant to section 1.3 of the Commission's rules, good cause exists to waive the requirement that responses to the Inquiries be uploaded to a station's OPIF. The responses to the Inquiries should instead be submitted under separate cover via email to the Enforcement Bureau at EB-EEO@fcc.gov. The email should also include a statement indicating that the remaining audit data was uploaded to a station's. Additionally, we clarify that station employment units with fewer than five full-time employees (defined by section 73.2080(e) f the Rules as employees regularly assigned to work 30 hours a week or more) are exempt from responding to the Inquiries. Finally, respondents are not required to include advertising contracts in response to the Inquiries."

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau has issued its 2025 Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audit letters to a randomly selected group of radio and television stations.

Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations are selected for EEO audits.

A list of the radio and television stations selected for the 2025 audit, as well as the text of the Aug. 8 audit letter, is available here.

Given the FCC’s aggressive crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and successful efforts to get companies like Verizon Communications and Paramount to abandon DEI policies as part of merger reviews, some analysts had expected the agency to drop the audits.

“In our recent post on the FCC’s first EEO audit of the Carr administration at the FCC, we expressed surprise that the audit was released, thinking that the Commission might move to revise the EEO rules and put enforcement of the current rules on hold, just as it has done with the Biennial Ownership Reports,” attorney David Oxenford noted in a blog.

“But thanks to another attorney who more closely reviewed the language of the FCC’s audit letter and alerted me to changes in these letters, we now know that the audits actually go beyond the issues previously reviewed by the FCC—and seek out information about programs that favor one race, ethnicity or gender in hiring and other employment evaluations,” he continued. “The audits now seem to be aimed in part at seeking out the types of ‘invidious’ DEI programs—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — that the current administration has labeled as discriminatory in and of themselves in transactions involving the biggest players in the communications industry. The FCC now seems to be looking for evidence of these DEI programs at all broadcast stations, just as they are seeking to root out and end these policies in other industries throughout the country.”

Oxenford also stressed that whatever the future of these audits might be, stations need to reply to the letters and take them seriously as broadcasters have been fined in the past for not supplying the information.

The deadline for stations to upload responses to their FCC-hosted online public inspection files is Sept. 22.

The FCC said that stations seeking further information should contact the Enforcement Bureau at EB-EEO@fcc.gov or 202-418-1450.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has sent out Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audit letters to 150 randomly selected TV and radio stations.

Each year, the FCC said it plans to send audit letters to approximately five percent of all radio and television stations. The letters dated October 18 were the second round of audit letters that have been sent in 2024.

Earlier this year, the FCC issued an order to reinstate the collection of radio and television stations’ workforce composition data on FCC Form 395-B. The FCC's Fourth Report and Order reinstating Form 395-B said the data would help it better track diversity in the broadcast industry. The rules went into effect on June 3 but the NAB and others have asked the FCC to reconsider the decision.

The data collection has also been challenged in the courts.

The deadline for stations to upload responses to their FCC-hosted online public inspection files is December 2, 2024 unless the stations request an extension, the FCC said.

However, stations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia whose operations were disrupted by Hurricanes Helene or Milton do not need to request an extension and may respond by Jan. 16, 2025, if additional time is needed. Stations in the impacted areas may contact the Enforcement Bureau to discuss further options if circumstances prevent them from responding to their audits by this extended deadline.

WASHINGTON—Approximately 150 randomly selected TV and radio stations are about to learn that they are part of the Federal Communication Commission’s next EEO audit.

Each year, the Enforcement Bureau goes about auditing approximately 5% of all U.S. broadcast licensees. This is the second set of equal employment opportunity audits in 2022.

The listed stations have until Oct. 7 to upload their responses. Here’s a link to the list and announcement.

If yours is on the list, keep in mind that — unlike in years past — the bureau is no longer sending individual letters notifying licensees of the completion of their response. If questions arise during the audit, bureau staff will contact you directly.

The audit includes all stations in the same station employment unit that are commonly owned, in the same market with shared employees. If the unit has fewer than five full-time employees, licensees must list them, identified by their job title, list the number of hours each is regularly assigned to work per week, and list any pending or resolved complaints made filed during the unit’s current license term.

If a unit of stations employs five or more full-time employees, the licensee must provide significantly more information. That includes copies of recent EEO public file reports, including details on the full-time positions that have been filled and dated copies of communications announcing the positions; information on the number of interviews conducted; dated documentation showing recruitment initiatives; any pending or resolved complaints; and information about the individuals responsible for implementing the unit’s EEO policies, among other items.

The announcement letter includes guidance about extension requests and what to do if you submitted an audit in 2020 or 2021.

This article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand Radio World. 

Are you on the FCC’s EEO audit list?

On March 21, the Federal Communications Commission announced that a randomly selected group of U.S. radio and television stations will soon be receiving Equal Employment Opportunity audit letters.

This group is part of the first batch sent in 2022 by the Enforcement Bureau. In accordance with the commission’s EEO guidelines, the FCC must annually audit the EEO programs of randomly selected broadcast licensees. Approximately 5% of all radio and television stations will be selected for an EEO audit.

On March 21, the bureau released a list of stations included in this first audit (PDF). Stations have until May 5 to upload responses to their online public inspection page.

Depending on the size of the station, the Enforcement Bureau will be asking for different EEO-related information.

A station — or a group of stations referred to as a unit —with more than five full-time employees will be asked to submit a minimal amount of information; those with five or more full-time employees must submit more detailed information.

The latter group must submit copies of the unit’s two most recent EEO Public File reports, proof that the EEO report is posted on each website for every station that maintains one, details on full-time employees like date of hire, copies of all advertisements and other communications announcing the position, the total number of interviewees for each vacancy, participation in events like job fairs and mentoring programs, examples of any pending or resolved complaints regarding unlawful discrimination in employment practices and other details.

Response to the FCC’s audit letter must be uploaded to the FCC-hosted online public inspection file belonging to each station in a group by May 5. Those looking for an extension must make that request via email (EB-EEO@fcc.gov) at least five days before the deadline.

WASHINGTON—In an effort to help broadcasters and pay-TV providers who have had to lay off employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FCC announced today that it would waive hiring rules under the commission’s Equal Employment Opportunity recruitment regulations. 

Normally, broadcasters with five or more full-time employees and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) with six or more employees have to engage in “broad recruitment” outreach when seeking new hires, to comply with EEO rules. The waiver will allow companies to avoid having to follow the EEO rules in hiring if they rehire employees who were laid off during the pandemic within nine months after termination.  

“Given the unique importance of broadcasters and MVPDs in providing access to breaking news and critical information relating to the pandemic, the public interest, convenience and necessity would be best served by encouraging these entities to maintain, or quickly resume, normal operations,” the commission said. “Facilitating the expeditious re-hiring of full-time employees laid off as a result of the pandemic to job vacancies created by the pandemic supports this important goal.”

The waiver is effective immediately.

WASHINGTON—The call from broadcasters to reduce Equal Employment Opportunity rules entirely misses the point of the FCC’s efforts regarding EEO efforts, according to the Multicultural Media Telecom & Internet Council.

“The proceeding is not about how to totally eviscerate, diminish or cripple EEO enforcement,” MMTC wrote in its reply comments to the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EEO. “Instead, the NPRM called for comments on how to improve the current EEO enforcement system.”

This stance is based on comments filed by the NAB and other broadcaster groups that argued for the removal or reworking of current EEO enforcement methods. One of the arguments made for this by state broadcaster associations is that there hasn’t been an indictment of a single broadcaster on discrimination since the EEO rules were instituted in 1969. However, MMTC sees that as precisely the problem.

“It is simply not the case that broadcasting is the only industry in the nation whose thousands of employers included no racial or gender discriminations in the past 50 years,” MMTC wrote. “The fact that an industry contains discriminators, but they never get prosecuted, much less held liable, is certainly not a strong argument for weakening the obviously insufficient EEO compliance program in place now.”

Other arguments made by broadcasters and those seeking to reduce or refine the EEO rules are based on cost or “burdensome” requirements. The MMTC counters by arguing that the EEO rules to avoid a potential audit only require they “recruit broadly,” which it states can be done by posting an open position online.

A specific point that MMTC said in its comments that it would like to see reinstituted as part of the EEO rules in the use of Form 395, which is designed to be able to determine and identify broadcasters who recruited broadly versus hiring through “word of mouth.”

All of this comes as a result of the FCC’s deregulation efforts of the EEO rules being denied by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which suggested that the FCC did not adequately gauge of the impact of its revisions—however, that ruling specifically dealt with diverse station ownership, not employment.

FCC’s ECFS has MMTC’s full comments.

WASHINGTON—In this latest series of articles on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EEO rules, the National Association of Broadcasters takes a stance that is shared by other broadcasters who have publicly commented in the ECFS database—that there is no evidence of discrimination in broadcasting that justifies additional regulation or that more EEO rules will actually increase employment diversity.

The NAB filed their reply comments as part of the FCC’s request for reply comments on the commission’s Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance and Enforcement Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

“Instead of imposing more top-down, unproductive obligations, the commission should focus its efforts on practical measures that will directly impact diversity,” the NAB said, such as increasing public awareness of EEO opportunities and industry education.

The NAB also took a stand against a proposal suggested by a group of EEO supporters that called for more frequent EEO audits. Rather, the NAB said, the FCC should minimize the unjustified burdens of EEO audits by eliminating audits for small broadcasters.

“The record does not contain a shred of evidence of discrimination in broadcasting,” the NAB said in their comment filing. The NAB said that the group relies on conjecture to argue that intentional discrimination is a widespread problem in broadcasting and that it demands additional regulation.

“Moreover, to our knowledge, the commission has conducted tens of thousands of reviews of broadcasters’ EEO programs since the rules became effective in 2003, without one finding of discrimination,” the NAB said.

As other broadcast groups have done in this proceeding, the NAB also raised the question of constitutionality. “The existing rules already push the boundaries of constitutionality. No previous version of the commission’s EEO rule has survived judicial scrutiny, and the current rules persist in part because they have never been challenged,” the NAB said.

“[I]mposing more rules, especially the collection of data about the racial and gender composition of a station’s workforce on Form 395-B, could threaten their sustainability,” the NAB said. Thus, the commission should be extremely wary of imposing additional EEO requirements.

Comments on the FCC’s EEO proposed rulemaking can be seen in the commissions’ ECFS database using Media Bureau Docket Number 19-177.

WASHINGTON—In recently filed comments on the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on EEO Compliance and Enforcement, the NAB suggests a new method for promoting diversity in the broadcast industry instead of reworked or increased rules and regulations, which the organization says are overly burdensome on broadcasters.

Claiming that broadcasters already take appropriate actions toward promoting diversity in the industry because of the benefits it inherently provides both their business and communities they serve, NAB criticized the current rules, saying that they “push the outer limits of constitutionality,” put significant burdens of time and expenses on stations to fill out required paperwork and claiming that data from the last 17 years say that the regulations are effective as possible.

NAB thinks a new, streamlined process could be beneficial for diversity efforts and on what is expected of broadcasters.

“Instead of taking the easy, familiar path of focusing on additional rules and regulations, the Commission should center its efforts on two areas in particular,” the statement reads. “First, the Commission should take pro-active, concrete steps that will actually increase employment diversity,” like raising public awareness for equal employment opportunities, expand industry education and facilitate connections among job applicants and employers. “Second, the Commission should take steps to reduce unnecessary burdens on broadcasters, especially small stations,” specifically citing audits on stations regarding EEO rules.

“Rather than writing new rules, the Commission should join the NAB in rolling up our sleeves and making a real dent in the challenges broadcasters face in hiring the most diverse workforce possible.”

The FCC was required by the federal court in its upcoming quadrennial review of media ownership rules to consider the impact of its policies on broadcast diversity. Related, the U.S. Third Circuit Court recently vacated earlier deregulation efforts dealing with media ownership diversity by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, saying the commission failed to adequately gauged the impact.

Read the full comments from NAB here.

WASHINGTON—It’s official: The Federal Communications Commission has transferred its Equal Employment Opportunity staff to work under the umbrella of its Enforcement Bureau, according to March 15’s Federal Register.

Specifically, EEO work will now operate out of the Enforcement Bureau’s Investigations & Hearings Division. A May 2018 proposal from The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and 33 other organizations suggested that a new Civil Rights branch be created; however, when Chairman Ajit Pai took up the cause, he declined to include that as part of his proposal to shift EEO work to the Enforcement Bureau.

Later that month, the commissioners voted to approve the change, which then required approvals from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and the Office of Management and Budget. Additionally, the FCC says it negotiated an agreement with the National Treasury Employees Union regarding the shift.

Pai views this move as one part of his larger campaign to modernize FCC rules, according to an FCC press release about the change.

WASHINGTON—Broadcasters will no longer be required to file the FCC’s Broadcast Mid-Term Report (Form 397) following a commission vote today during the agency’s Open Commission Meeting.

The FCC eliminated the form, which is used as part of the agency’s mid-term review of broadcasters’ equal employment opportunity practices, because most of the information it provides is available in broadcasters’ online public inspection files, the agency said. Any remaining missing information will be made available in the public files before Form 397 is eliminated.

Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Brendan Carr voted to approve, and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks concurred.

More information is available on the FCC website.

WASHINGTON--When it gets back to work after the government shutdown, the Federal Communications Commission will have a fair amount of work on its plate — including a formal vote on equal employment opportunity enforcement, which one nonprofit organization is hoping will bring about changes that it says are 14 years overdue.

The president emeritus of the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC) asked FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Jessica Rosenworcel to consider additional steps beyond the FCC’s planned housekeeping vote on EEO in order to better address diversity and employment issues at broadcast stations via a series of phone calls in early January.

It was nearly a year ago that the FCC announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (another piece of its ongoing media modernization efforts) that would eliminate the need for TV and radio stations to submit a mid-term report detailing their EEO practices.

The subsequent Report and Order, known as the EEO Mid-Term Report (part of Media Bureau Docket No. 18-23), would eliminate a station’s need to submit a so-called mid-term Form 397 because details about a broadcaster’s EEO compliance are now part of the FCC’s Online Public Inspection File.

But during phone calls with Commissioners Carr and Rosenworcel in early January, the MMTC’s David Honig said he reiterated to the commissioners the MMTC’s concerns about the FCC’s EEO efforts — specifically regarding the long-standing means by which racial and gender discrimination in broadcasting occur: word-of-mouth recruiting.

While the commission does discourage word-of-mouth recruiting, Honig said, the FCC has not taken enough steps to address cronyism, which “is the primary reason why key sectors of the broadcast industry remain largely closed to people of color and, often, to all but a handful of women,” he said in ex parte letters to the commission.

Honig urges the commission to use certain racial and gender data to identify stations which recruit primarily by word of mouth and require them to submit more information as part of a station’s Annual Employment Report. If not, sanctions may be in order, Honig said.

“This two-step method — first identifying those stations that recruit primarily by [word of mouth] and then having those stations submit a Form 395 in camera (in private) — will allow the commission to find and bring to justice those broadcasters that inherently discriminate, thereby fulfilling the purpose of the EEO rule,” Honig wrote.

But in its Report and Order, the FCC noted that MMTC and its filers were seeking “far-reaching substantive changes to the commission’s EEO rules, whereas this NPRM is only concerned with improvements to EEO compliance and enforcement.” As a result, the commission did not address the groups’ proposed broader changes in the item.

The commission did note, however, that it has demonstrated its commitment to EEO enforcement by the relocation of EEO enforcement staff and responsibilities to the Enforcement Bureau, as the EEO supporters suggested.

But Honig expressed concern that the commission has repeatedly avoided opportunities to address key issues impacting EEO hiring.

“[These] proposals, in only slightly different form, have been pending since 2004 [yet] the agency has repeatedly avoided opportunities to address them,” he said. “The NPRM presented members of the public with their first opportunity, in 14 years, to respond to what appeared to be a genuine indication from the commission that it intended to seriously consider the proposals at last.”

The right steps from here, Honig said, would be to put the proposals out for further comment on any specific issues that the commission feels would benefit from additional evidence or argument.

“Fifteen years have elapsed since these proposals were first lodged, and during that time minorities and women in broadcasting have had no protection against ‘cronyism,’” Honig said. Race and gender discrimination in employment is just as top-line an issue as intercarrier comp, undersea cables or retransmission consent.”

He suggested that the commission undertake to complete the proceeding no later than July 2019.