The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) has adopted a Report and Order (Order) revising its rules governing filing of program carriage complaints between video programming vendors and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). Currently under the rules, the statute of limitations runs a year after a video programming vendor gives an MVPD notice of its intent to file a complaint. In the Order, the Commission revises the rules to run the one-year statute of limitations when an MVPD rejects or fails to acknowledge a request for program carriage or request to negotiate for program carriage. This change will also apply to rules governing program access, open video system (OVS), and good-faith retransmission consent complaints. Furthermore, the Order changes the effective date and review of initial decisions by administrative law judges in this context to at least 50 days following release.
