30-Day Countdown to January 31, 2022, Deadline to File Annual Children’s Television Programming Report.
As part of the overhaul of the children’s television programming rules in 2019, the FCC did away with quarterly children’s television programming report filings. To satisfy the new, annual filing requirement, within 30 days of the end of the year (i.e., by January 30 each year) stations must file a children’s television programming report covering compliance across the entire preceding calendar year. Because January 30, 2021, falls on a Sunday, the filing deadline is extended until the next business day—January 31, 2021. Accordingly, stations only have one month left to complete and file this year’s report. The reporting form is made available in the FCC’s LMS filing platform on the first day of the calendar year that the report will cover.
Children’s Television Programming Reports reflect efforts made by the station during the relevant reporting period to serve the educational and informational needs of children. These reports must be filed through the FCC’s LMS filing system, which is available at https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/login.html. Once the report is filed, the FCC is supposed to automatically populate the station’s online public inspection file in the OPIF system (https://publicfiles.fcc.gov) with the filed report. Full power and Class A television stations should confirm that the report is accessible in the station’s online public inspection file within 24 hours of filing the report.
