Under S. 1182, joint sales agreements (JSAs) entered into before June 19, 2014, would be exempt from provisions of a rule limiting those agreements that was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) earlier in that year. A JSA is an agreement between one television broadcast station that sells advertising time on behalf of a competing station (the other party in the agreement) in the same market. In 2014, the FCC adopted a rule that would treat JSAs allowing one station to sell 15 percent or more of the weekly advertising time of a competing station as establishing an ownership interest. Under current law, FCC rules limit local television ownership to one station in many local markets across the country, or two, if certain conditions are met.
Based on information from the FCC, CBO estimates that implementing S. 1182 would have an insignificant effect on the agency’s costs. The FCC is authorized to collect fees sufficient to offset its operating costs each year; therefore, we estimate that the net effect on discretionary spending would be negligible, assuming appropriation action consistent with that authority. Enacting S. 1182 would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
S. 1182 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.
