2014 Political Broadcasting Requirements

To help you comply with the many federal laws and the FCC and FEC regulations governing political broadcasting, we have prepared an updated version of the Political Broadcasting Requirements memo, available here. Legally qualified political candidates who wish to purchase time for “uses” relating to their campaign cannot be charged more than the lowest unit rate for the same class and amount of advertising time for the same time period as regular commercial spot or program time that airs beginning 45 days before a primary, caucus, or primary runoff election and 60 days before a general or special election. The Political Broadcasting Requirements memo describes in greater detail the FCC’s lowest unit rate requirements, and many other special rules and procedures, including the obligation that network-affiliated television stations in the largest markets now upload the station’s political files to the online material maintained for public inspection by the FCC, and, ultimately, that all television stations upload their political files to the FCC’s online public files. A chart listing the 2014 federal and state primary and general election dates is available here and on our website – www.lermansenter.com.

We encourage you to contact us to review your political broadcasting policies and your related disclosure statement prepared for distribution to candidates. If you have any questions concerning the political broadcasting rules and requirements, please contact your primary attorney in our office.

Categories: Media