A stopgap funding bill failed to pass in the U.S. Senate on Friday, which means that the federal government shutdown will last into its second week.

Where does this leave the Federal Communications Commission?

The FCC released a public notice on Sept. 30 announcing that it will “suspend most operations” during the shutdown that began on Oct. 1. As the Georgia Association of Broadcasters noted, this differs from previous shutdowns when the commission indicated it had reserve funds to continue operations temporarily.

As Michi Bradley at REC Networks deftly observed, the FCC’s employees may be feeling the biggest effect from the shutdown.

Approximately 80% of the commission’s staff are currently furloughed and not receiving paychecks.

With multiple deadlines for form filings slated for this month, along with the end of periods for filing comments on significant issues such as the future of the Emergency Alert System and the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System, now is a good chance to update where we stand.

The details below are according to the Georgia Association of Broadcasters’ summary of the FCC’s operations during the shutdown.

Applications and Filings
As a result of the shutdown, broadcasters cannot file applications, reports, requests, notifications, pleadings or other documents in the FCC’s License Management System database, which includes all TV, AM, FM, Class A, LPTV, translator and booster stations.

Other commission databases that cannot be updated during the shutdown include the Universal Licensing System—for broadcast auxiliary and microwave filings—and the Emergency Alert System Test Reporting System for EAS equipment and capabilities.

The ETRS Form One deadline had been Oct. 3.

Right now, LMS and ULS can still be accessed for normal lookups. The TV, AM and FM query station search tools and the Audio Division’s tools and calculators are also still available, at least on a limited basis. Our friends at REC Networks note that the Contours API is also still online.

However, the Georgia Association of Broadcasters warns that this could change as the shutdown continues.

Deadlines

• The following details also come from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters’ shutdown summary.
• As we mentioned on Oct. 1, all deadlines during the shutdown are extended until the next business day after the commission resumes its normal operations.
• Special Temporary Authorities that expire during the shutdown are automatically extended until one day after the FCC resumes.
• If an emergency STA is needed, however, it can be requested through the FCC Operations Center at 202-418-1122.
• Reports to a station’s online public inspection file, including Q3 quarterly issues and program lists that are due Oct. 10, may be uploaded the day after the FCC resumes. This also includes EEO reports, donor lists and any updates to a station’s political file. 
• All stations must maintain a physical political file and retain all political orders received. 
• Any stations that are silent or go silent during the shutdown remain subject to the one-year resumption requirement. Stations should document operations resuming and notify the commission once it opens.
• Broadcasters must also continue to meet construction permit deadlines. License applications and buildout notifications that are needed during the shutdown will be accepted the day after the FCC resumes operations.
• Deadlines for oppositions, replies and other pleadings are currently suspended. New deadlines will be calculated from the FCC’s reopening date.
• For enforcement proceedings, previous deadlines remain, unless otherwise directed by the Enforcement Bureau.
• The FCC’s fee filer system is also currently unavailable.

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

WASHINGTON—The FCC announced that it suspended operations at 12:01 am this morning after Congress failed to reach an agreement on funding the federal government.

Although the FCC website will remain up, it will not be updated except for matters related to spectrum auction activities and threats to life and property. Most filing deadlines that fall during the shutdown will be extended with submissions due the next business day after the FCC resumes normal operations.

The only exceptions where deadlines will not be extended are for filings for the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) and Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) as well as all filings and deadlines related to spectrum auction activities; provider responses to Broadband Data Collection (BDC) challenges, verification, or audit requests. Most deadlines for enforcement matters and investigations, at the discretion of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau.

The FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) and Integrated Spectrum Auction System (ISAS) will have support only for auction-related activities, while the Broadband Data Collection (BDC) system, National Broadband Map, Antenna Structure Registration System (ASR), and Robocall Mitigation Database (RMD) will be available, but with no user support.

All other FCC electronic filing and database systems, including the Fee Filer System, will be unavailable. However, no deadline for payments of any type is being extended, unless applicants are only able to pay through the Fee Filer. In those cases, the applicable due date is extended in the same manner as the due dates for other regulatory filings herein, the FCC said.

“Otherwise, we expect payments to be timely made through the use of US Bank as they normally would if normal operations had not been suspended,” the commission said in its public notice.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who chaired a monthly meeting on Tuesday that was briefly interrupted by protestors, told attendees at the SCTE Tech Expo on Monday that they commission was prepared.

“We have been hard at work the last couple of weeks preparing for a possible government shutdown,” Carr said. “Hopefully we don't get there, but we do have a game plan in place.”

WASHINGTON--The Federal Communications Commission has shaken up the calendar when it comes to new deadlines for filing certain broadcast documentation.

After parts of the U.S. government, including the FCC for the most part, went into shutdown mode in late December, the agency gave broadcasters until the dayafter the government reopened to submit filings that were due anytime from Jan. 3 through Jan. 29, 2019. Then that deadline was changed to Wednesday Jan 30, 2019.

Now, however, the commission issued a new public notice alerting broadcasters of revised deadlines for specific documents.

These new deadlines shake things up a bit. In a newly released public notice, the commission extended the deadlines for most filings according to the following schedule:

• Filings that were due between Jan. 3 and Jan. 7 were due Jan. 30, 2019;

• Filings that would otherwise be required to be filed between Jan. 8 and Feb. 7 will be due for filing on Feb. 8, 2019.

There are some exceptions. The FCC set different filing deadlines for certain proceedings, including the Universal Licensing System database, the Information Consumer Complaint database, comments to the Carriage Election Notice Modernization proceeding and the Online Public Inspection File (OPIF).

WASHINGTON—The FCC has rescheduled its February Open Meeting to take place on Feb. 14 at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and announced changes to its tentative schedule.

The broadcast-related agenda items include:

• A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking revising licensing rules and comparative processing pertaining to noncommercial educational broadcast and low-power FM stations.
• A Report and Order eliminating a requirement of FCC rules that certain stations file the Broadcast Mid-Term Report, Form 397.

The meeting was rescheduled from Feb. 21 to Feb. 14 because the FCC currently is running under a continuing resolution through Feb. 15. The agenda items scheduled for consideration in February originally were to be considered at the January Open Meeting, but due to the lack of appropriations and partial government shutdown were withdrawn, the FCC said.

More information is available on the FCC website.

WASHINGTON—The FCC announced today that it will hold its monthly Open Meeting on Wednesday, Jan 30, 2019 at 11:00 a.m., 30 minutes later than previously announced.

The meeting will only address FCC announcements made this month. Due to the partial government shutdown, the commission will not address items previously announced in its Jan. 3 Tentative Agenda. Those items included sunsetting certain outdated regulations regarding the DTV transition and enhancing wireless emergency alerts.

If the federal government has re-opened by Jan. 30, the meeting will commence in the FCC Headquarters. It the government is still shut down, the commission will hold its meeting via conference call. Meeting participants can listen to the “audio only” of the meeting by calling 1-866-233-3841 and using pass code 463377. Call-in capacity may be limited depending on the volume of calls. Callers may call the toll-free number up to ten minutes before the scheduled meeting time.

Either way, the meeting will only consist of FCC announcements, the commission said. 

WASHINGTON--As the government shutdown heads into its third week, broadcasters are facing ongoing uncertainty when it comes to filing documents, public inspection files and recordkeeping obligations.

Although the Federal Communications Commission was still on the job about a week and a half after the U.S. government officially shut down on Dec. 22 (due to the FCC’s ability to provide its own funding through Jan. 3), those funds officially ran out on last Thursday.

That now leaves broadcasters with myriad questions about filing deadlines and political file requirements, wrote Pillsbury Senior Counsel Lauren Lynch Flick in a blog post.

Under the Antideficiency Act, FCC employees are prohibited from working until funds are available to pay them. And while the Antideficiency Act doesn’t directly affect automated FCC’s filing databases and other systems, some of those systems are incapable of operating without regular human intervention, Lynch Flick said. Others can only operate without human intervention until they experience a malfunction of some kind, “at which point the Antideficiency Act prohibits anyone from maintaining or repairing them,” she said.

On Jan. 2, the FCC released a Public Notice detailing which systems remain online for the time being. Those include network outage and disaster reporting systems, databases related to licensing and filing comments, among others.

Other systems, however, will be unavailable. According to Lynch Flick, conversations with FCC staff minutes before they were required to leave the building indicated that even they didn’t know for sure whether the commission’s Public Inspection File database would continue operating during the shutdown.

As of January 7, attempt to access station documents were unsuccessful. While it says that stations are currently uploading documents on the FCC’s main Public File page, all attempts to view station documents simply lead to a page reading “Authentication Failed Error. Contact Technical Support.”

According to Lynch Flick, the public’s inability to access the online Public File triggers an obligation on the part of broadcasters and cable/DBS systems to make a back-up copy of the political broadcasting portion of their Public Inspection File available to the public.

Though stations can keep this political file in physical form at their main studio or electronically on their website, the elimination of the Main Studio rule in 2017 placed another obligation in place. Political file documents that are not available via the FCC’s online database must now be made available at an accessible location in the station’s community of license during normal business hours, Lynch Flick wrote. That means a station office, the local library, the office of another broadcaster or another business.

Broadcasters are not required to make any other portion of their Public Inspection File beyond the political file available during the federal shutdown, she said.

She also noted that shutdown of the online Public Inspection File database also means broadcasters cannot upload their Quarterly Issues/Programs List or Children’s Commercial Television Limits compliance documents. Those would otherwise be due on Jan. 10, 2019, though the date to upload those documents has been extended until after the commission reopens.

However, she noted, “the inability to upload materials to the Public File does not relieve stations of their recordkeeping obligations.” A 2016 Public File Report and Order requires that stations must still maintain documents and upload them to the file once it is available again for upload. “[S]tations should proceed as usual in the creation of their Jan. 10 documentation and be prepared to upload those materials once the online Public Inspection File database becomes accessible,” she said.

The commission noted in its Public Notice that, other than auction filings and those necessary for the protection of life and property, filings at the FCC during the shutdown will be accepted on the day after return to normal operations.

One area that is not affected by the shutdown: spectrum auction operations. Those remain fully funded by the FCC and staff will available to answer questions, grant requests for Special Temporary Authority and process requests for reimbursement.

“So if upon hearing of the FCC shutdown you thought you could extend that holiday vacation, think again,” Lynch Flick wrote. “Your regulatory obligations didn’t go away, they just became more complicated to fulfill.”

WASHINGTON—As the federal government shutdown enters its third week, the FCC announced on Thursday that it was suspending most of its operations until the government re-opens.

As it warned earlier this week, the following FCC functions will be available during the lapse in operations:

• Network Outage Reporting System (NORS)

• Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS)

• Public Safety Support Center (PSSC)

• Licensing Management System (LMS)

• Consolidated Database System (CDBS)

• Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS)

• Universal Licensing System (ULS)

• Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS)

• Auctions Public Reporting System (PRS)

• Auction Application System

• Auction Bidding System

• Daily Digest, and

• Commission Online Registration System (CORES).

All other commission electronic filing and database systems will be unavailable to the public until normal agency operations resume, the FCC said. The Consumer Complaint Center (including the main FCC Call Center) will not be operating.

Activities related to the broadcast channel repack and the 28 GHz spectrum auctions will continue and content on the agency’s website will still be accessible to the public but will not be updated except news related to the auctions and—as always—“matters necessary for the protection of life and property.”

Any STAs expiring during the suspension are extended to the day after regular commission operations resume except those STAs related to the repack. Emergency STA requests involving potential risks to life or property will be processed through the FCC Operations Center (202-418-1122) while the commission’s electronic dockets and other online resources are unavailable.

The FCC’s Fee Filer System will not be available while operations are suspended, and therefore no regulatory fee or application fee payments can be made through Fee Filer during the shutdown. Deadlines for payments are not being extended; however since the Fee Filer system will not be available, only payments made to US Bank will be processed.

The Commission’s informal 180-day time clock for review of transactions is also suspended. 

For more information, read the FCC's notice. 

WASHINGTON—For the second year in a row, FCC chair Ajit Pai has pulled out of his appearance at the Consumer Technology Association's CES in Las Vegas next week.

Pai was to have been interviewed in a "Fireside Chat" with CES president Gary Shapiro, which has become something of a tradition. But Pai's office said the government shutdown—and uncertainty about how long it would last—precipitated the decision.

It is not clear whether commissioner Brendan Carr, who also planned to attend to kick the tires on new tech, will be making the trip or canceling due to the shutdown. Carr's office was not available for comment.

Commissioners are still able to work in the office because they are essential personnel, but travel budgets are expected to be curtailed during a shutdown.

“Because of the government shutdown, some of our scheduled government speakers at CES® 2019 have alerted us that they must cancel their travel to the show," said Shapiro. "As a result, some of our scheduled CES 2019 programming and speakers will change. We urge attendees who planned to hear U.S. federal government speakers to check the sessions on the website to ensure those individuals are still speaking. Our Speakers Directory can be found here. This page will be updated regularly.”

WASHINGTON—As the federal government that started Dec. 22 continues, the FCC has announced that it will suspend most operations in the middle of the day on Thursday, Jan. 3. At that time, employees will have up to four hours to complete an orderly shutdown of operations.

However, work required for the protection of life and property will continue, as will any work related to spectrum auctions, which is funded by auction proceeds. In addition, the Office of the Inspector General will continue operations until further notice.

Later today (Wednesday) the Commission will release a Public Notice detailing the effects the suspension of operations will have, including on electronic filing and database systems, filing deadlines, regulatory and application fee payments, transaction shot clocks, and more. The Public Notice will be available on the Commission’s website, www.fcc.gov.

The FCC’s overall shutdown plan is available at https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-plan-orderly-shutdown-december-2018. The resumption of normal Commission operations will also be announced on the FCC’s website.

WASHINGTON—The FCC said Friday (Jan. 19) that if the government shuts down, the commission will not, at least for the first week--through Friday, Jan. 26, at least.

At press time, according to C-SPAN, there was no Senate vote scheduled on House-passed legislation to keep the government open a few more weeks under a continuing resolution (CR). Deadline for the Congress to act is midnight, Friday.

Asked what the FCC would do in case of a shutdown, Brian Hart, director of the FCC's Office of Media Relations, said: “In the event of a partial government shutdown, because of available funding, the Federal Communications Commission plans to remain open and pay staff at least through the close of business on Friday, January 26.”

During the October 2013, three-week, government shutdown, the FCC shuttered its web site and had to suspend its filing deadlines and suspend its merger-review shot clocks.

Commissioners and some essential personnel still came to work, however.

This story originally appeared on TVT's sister publication B&C.