9/13 update: Read an important update to this story here.
Radio broadcasters looking to get ahead on paying their annual regulatory fees were faced with a surprise when accessing the FCC’s Commission Registration System (CORES) this week.
The FCC opened the online window to collect the fees on Sept. 11. The good news is that broadcasters will pay about 6% less in regulatory fees this year; however, at least one broadcaster said they were stymied from doing so when they found incorrect information after logging into CORES on Wednesday. They said the information was still incorrect as of mid-afternoon Thursday.
Around 4 p.m. (ET) on Thursday, an FCC spokesperson told Radio World that “the data via CORES should now be available and corrected. This was a data download issue that has since been resolved.”
However, as of Friday morning, one director of engineering told Radio World that the system was still providing bad data. “The total impact on our group of stations caused by the incorrect fee assessment (caused entirely by wrong codes and population brackets) is over $27,200,” he wrote in an email.
Scott Flick, a partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, said on Thursday that some stations were at one point being listed in CORES as the wrong type of station. For example, an FM station was being listed instead as an FM translator, which would result in a lower fee. In another case, a station was suddenly listed as having a much higher population coverage than it really does.
It appears the issue was widespread on Wednesday — affecting mostly FM radio stations — but Flick said it’s not clear how many stations might have been impacted. TV stations have not been affected.
“The errors are usually pretty obvious, as the fees generally show up correctly in the FCC’s fee lookup database,” said Flick, “but then the information in CORES will be different. However, I’ve seen a few errors appear in the fee lookup database as well, so clearly something went awry in the data entry process after the fees were set.”
Stations do have some time to pay up. Annual fee payments are due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sept. 26. The annual regulatory fees collected by the FCC will fund its proposed $390.2 million budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Radio World is continuing to investigate. Check back later for more updates.
