September 2026 Regulatory Dates for Broadcasters – FCC Regulatory Fees, Auction 114 Short-Form Applications and Filing Freeze, Deadline for Implementation of EAS Security Practices, LUC Window for the November Election and More

It is time for our look at September’s regulatory dates and deadlines to which broadcasters should be paying attention, and the deadline that probably is most important to all commercial broadcasters is not yet known.  That, of course, is the deadline for the payment of annual regulatory fees, which must be made before the federal government’s October 1 start of the new fiscal year.  The FCC on Friday announced the amount of those fees, and we expect that this coming week, the payment window will be set, and the FCC will issue fee filing guides for all the industries regulated by the FCC – including a Media Bureau filing guide for broadcasters.  Stay alert for those announcements. 

Later in the month is the filing window for broadcasters to submit their Auction 114 “short-form” construction permit applications necessary to participate in the action of 132 construction permits for new FM stations, (see the list of available channels here).  The filing window opens at 12:00 p.m. ET on September 14 and closes at 6:00 p.m. ET on September 30.  Bidding is scheduled to begin on February 2, 2027.  These “short-form” applications on FCC Form 175 are necessary to participate in the auction.  Among the information required from an applicant in the Form 175 is the identification of which of the 132 vacant allotments they intend to bid on, any bidding credits for which they may be eligible, and certain ownership information.  Applicants may also specify specific coordinates for tower sites that an applicant plans to use for any channel to protect that site from being precluded by subsequent applications by other FM stations.  For more on the process, see our article here and the FCC’s instructions for auction participation here.  In addition, the FCC just released a Small Entity Compliance Guide summarizing the requirements and procedures for the upcoming Auction.

To facilitate Auction 114, a filing freeze on all FM commercial and noncommercial minor change applications will also begin on September 14 and will close on September 30.  The temporary freeze is designed to avoid conflicts between any minor change application and any of the auction proposals, thus promoting certainty and speed in the auction process.  

Another important deadline for all broadcasters, commercial and noncommercial, is September 29 – the deadline for all broadcasters to implement the new Emergency Alert Service (EAS) security practices adopted in the FCC’s June Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, As we detailed in our article here, the Order requires that broadcasters have in place by that date a three-point program to secure their EAS equipment, studio transmitter links, and any remotely managed equipment used for routing, processing, or inserting content into their programming streams.  The requirements include stricter password controls, rapid implementation of EAS software and equipment updates, and putting all EAS equipment behind a firewall or otherwise isolating that equipment from other Internet-connected devices.  The NAB and NASBA (the alliance of state broadcast associations) will be hosting a free webinar at Noon ET on September 1 to discuss these requirements.  Registration is available here.

September 29 is also the deadline to file reply comments responding to the EAS FNPRM, which seeks comments on several proposals including whether to require authentication of all EAS alerts before transmission, other steps to make EAS alerts more accurately targeted, and whether software-based EAS encoders/decoders should be allowed in addition to the current hardware devices.  Comments are due August 31.

September 4 is the opening date for the window during which broadcasters must offer lowest unit rates to political candidates running in elections that will be held on November 3 – including all Congressional elections.  We’ve recently written about controversies about who is owed those rates (see our articles here and here) – but the rates themselves go into effect on September 4.  Watch for further actions in the appeals of the decisions about who is entitled to lowest unit rates, actions which could come quickly as a stay of the Court decision defining who is entitled to those rates has been requested from the Supreme Court, requesting action before the September 4 opening of the window.

Surprisingly, there are also some state and local elections occurring later in November 2026, meaning that Lowest Unit Rates apply to advertising sales to candidates in those elections (see our article here on the basics of computing LUR) on slightly different dates:

In our summary of regulatory dates in August, we identified other political windows that are already open for LUR for elections occurring in September and October.   That list should have included the primary in Massachusetts, which is on September 1. 

As a refresher, in the 45 days before a primary election, and 60 days before a general or special election, broadcasters must extend to legally qualified candidates their lowest unit rate and continue to follow all other applicable political broadcasting rules.  For a deeper dive on how to prepare for the 2026 elections, see our post here, which also includes a link to our comprehensive Political Broadcasting Guide.  Also, take a look at our 2026 Broadcasters’ Calendar to see if your state has any upcoming primary, general, or special election (and confirm that all dates for political windows, including those listed above, are accurate as some dates have changed since the calendar was prepared).

Looking ahead to some of the more important October dates and deadlines for broadcasters, October 1 is the deadline for radio and television station employment units in Alaska, American Samoa, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Iowa, Missouri, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington with five or more full-time employees to upload their Annual EEO Public File Report to their stations’ Online Public Inspection Files (OPIFs).  A station employment unit is a station or cluster of commonly controlled stations serving the same general geographic area having at least one common employee.  For employment units with five or more full-time employees, the annual report covers hiring and employment outreach activities for the prior year.  A link to the uploaded report must also be included on the home page of each station’s website, if the station has a website.  Be timely getting these reports into your station’s OPIF, as even a single late report has in the past led to significant FCC fines (see our article here about a recent $26,000 fine for a single late EEO report).

October 1 is also the deadline for all full-power TV and “qualified” Class A TV stations (those few Class A stations in areas without other television service that are entitled to carriage rights) must place in their OPIF notice of whether they elect retransmission consent or must-carry carriage from their area’s MVPDs for the upcoming three-year cycle beginning on January 1, 2027, and ending December 31, 2029.  If the station has decided to change its election, it must notify the MVPD by email, to an address set out in the MVPD’s public file.  We wrote about the FCC’s adoption of these requirements here.

October 2 starts a filing freeze for FM translators in anticipation of a window for filing by noncommercial broadcasters of applications for new translators in the reserved band (below 92 on the FM dial).  The window for new applications will be from November 4 until 6 PM Eastern on November 17.  The freeze will begin after 11:59 p.m. ET, Friday, October 2, 2026, and continue through 6:00 pm EST on Tuesday, November 17, 2026.  For more on the translator filing window see our Blog articles here, here and here, and see the FCC Public Notice announcing the dates of the freeze and the filing window here. 

And October 13 (postponed from the usual due date of the 10^th because that is a Saturday followed by a Monday Federal holiday so the due date rolls over to the next business day) is the deadline by which all full-power radio and TV stations (as well as Class A television stations), both commercial and noncommercial, must upload to their OPIFs their Quarterly Issues/Program lists for the third quarter of 2026.  The lists should identify the issues of importance to the station’s community and the programs that the station aired between July 1 and September 30, 2026 that addressed those issues.  It is important that these be timely uploaded to your public file, as the untimely uploads of these documents probably have resulted in more fines in the last decade than for any other violation of the FCC’s rules.  As you finalize your lists, do so carefully and accurately, as they are the only official records of how your station is serving the public and addressing the needs and interests of its community.  See our article here for more on the importance of the Quarterly Issues/Programs list obligation.

As always, consult your own legal and technical advisors for other dates of importance that might apply to your stations in the upcoming months.