EEO Frequently Asked Questions

No. On the form where you list all of your hires and sources contacted, provide a list of all sources that you contacted, whether or not they produced referrals.

No. None of those sources are considered broad public outreach. You may use those sources, but only in addition to other outside recruitment sources, such as a state broadcast association website, job bank, job recruiting website, state employment office, local organization, college placement office, or other public sources.

There is not a set minimum number of sources. Generally, recruitment using only one source will not be considered to be adequate except in the rare case where it is exceedingly broad and wide-reaching, and is productive in generating referrals. Using more than one source is often more productive and reaches more potential applicants. The Commission, however, does not require that a specific minimum number of sources must be contacted.

No. Posting only to your own website(s) is likely too narrow a focus to constitute broad outreach to the community. The recruiting needs to attempt to reach a large a cross-section of the broadcaster's own community. Depending on the community, an assortment of sources that target various demographic groups could be needed to achieve acceptable outreach.

Yes. If you recruit adequately in May, and get an applicant pool with more than one qualified applicant, you can hire more than one person from that pool over a short period of time. The key is how long you wait until the second hire. If it is more than three months, it might be too long a period, and you would need to conduct a second round of outreach and recruiting.

No. If you hire someone with the intention of keeping them permanently, it is considered a full-time hire and the hire is fully subject to the EEO rules, despite the probationary period. However, if you hire someone for 90 days, with the intention of keeping them for only 90 days, that would be a temporary hire and not subject to the EEO rules.

Possibly. The EEO rules do not require outreach for part-time positions; however, if you hired someone part-time after recruiting using broad outreach, then that person can be promoted to full-time status without further recruiting. If you did not use outreach recruiting when you hired the part time employee, however, as with any full-time opening, you must recruit using broad outreach before hiring for the full-time position.

No. You can make a lateral transfer or a promote an existing full-time employee without recruiting.

An exigent hire is one made without recruiting because of an emergency need, or unique circumstances, such as when your top-rated DJ, who left two years ago, comes back and wants to work again and you feel this person is so desirable, you can't pass up the chance to hire him or her. It is permissible to make exigent hires, but they should be the exception, and not the rule. You may not use exigency as an excuse to hire someone without doing adequate outreach and recruiting.

A religious broadcaster is allowed to employ a religious belief or affiliation as a qualification for one, some, or all of its hires. A religious broadcaster is defined in 47 CFR Section 73.2080(a) as a licensee that is or is closely affiliated with, a church, synagogue, or other religious entity, including a subsidiary of such an entity. A religious broadcaster that does not require a religious qualification for any full-time staff is fully subject to the EEO rules if it employs five or more full-time staff. If it requires a religious qualification for any of its staff, it will still need to recruit broadly among those who meet the religious qualifications, and will still be prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, or sex. A religious broadcaster does not have to do the outreach initiatives listed in 47 CFR Section 73.2080(c)(2) unless it has five or more full-time staff not subject to the religious qualification. For its hires subject to the religious qualification, the licensee needs to keep only records of the hire, sources contacted for the opening, the source of the hire, and the date of the hire.

The EEO recruiting requirements apply only to stations or employment units with five or more full-time staff. If your station or unit fluctuates between having five or fewer full-time staff, the rules apply only for the periods during which the station or unit has five full-time staff. In order to be required to complete two or more initiatives in a two-year period, the station or unit has to have five full-time staff for one entire year or more. For example, if you are required to perform four initiatives in two years, but you add up periods of having five full-time staff and those periods amount to only six months, you would not be required to do any initiatives.

In addition, when the FCC evaluates EEO performance, we look only to the performance of the current licensee, not what a previous owner did. Therefore, the period of current ownership is the only relevant period for us to review. One final note, whether a station or unit needs to create an EEO public file report depends on its status as of the due date for the report. If it has six full-time staff most of the year, but dips down to four on its report filing deadline of June 1, it does not need to file a report that year.

Once a station or unit acquires its fifth full-time staff member, then it must implement an EEO recruitment program and start keeping EEO records and file reports for all future activity.

You do not need to include promotions generally; you need to report full-time new hires. However, if an open full-time position is filled by promoting an existing employee, you would be required to report that the open position was filled by promotion. A part-time employee may be promoted to full-time, but only if recruitment took place when that employee was first hired for the part-time slot. If there was no recruitment outreach for the part-time position, then there must be recruitment outreach to fill the full-time opening.

As the licensee or the owner of the station, you remain accountable for the hiring of your staff. You need to make sure that FCC rules are followed, even if you use an outside consultant to help manage staffing needs.

An employment unit is a station or stations that share at least one full-time employee, are in the same market, and have the same owner or parent owner.

LMS does not allow amendments to Form 396. Instead of amending, you would need to file a new form. EEO staff will know to review the most recently filed form. If you submit a new revised form, it would be prudent to notify EEO staff so that we are aware of the new filing. We might have already reviewed the initial form, and we would not be automatically notified that a revised form has been filed.

If the family member is a sole or part-owner, they may be hired without recruitment. If not, and the new hire would be the fifth full time employee or if there are already five or more full time employees, there must be recruitment for this and all full-time openings.

There is no limit specified by the rules, but hires under exigent circumstances should be the exception, rather than the rule. A preponderance of hiring under exigent circumstances could be a red flag signaling that adequate outreach and recruiting is not being conducted.

There are options for satisfying initiatives requirements other than attending a job fair, and a number of alternatives not specifically related to hiring are available. In addition to job fairs, there are fifteen other categories of actions you can take to meet the requirement that you complete two or four initiatives in two years (see 73.2080(c)(2)). For example, if you are not hiring, you can engage in training or mentoring of existing staff, offering internships, sponsoring a scholarship, conducting station tours, having the station staff speak at a local school, or sponsoring a booth at a local festival.

Yes. If all of the entities actually participated in sponsoring the job fair and can document what each did, it is possible that they can all claim credit. The rules allow credit for co-sponsoring a job fair.

No. In order for the stations to claim credit for participating in a job fair, someone with hiring authority for that station must attend. If the corporate personnel chief does the hiring for all of the stations, then they can claim credit.

No. One hiring session would constitute one intern initiative, regardless of how many interns were part of the hiring session. For example, if you hire four interns for the summer, and then have another session in January for the spring semester that includes three new interns, that would constitute two (rather than seven) total initiatives.

You would get credit for the two new initiatives (if valid) only for the new two-year period. Failure to complete enough required initiatives during any given two-year period is a violation of the rules. A station or unit must complete two or four initiatives (depending on number of full time employees) out of the sixteen categories of initiatives during each twenty-four-month period, or face the possibility of a penalty.

No. The training only needs to be job-related. For example, it can involve a staff member learning a new skill related to work, such as how to install cable boxes or handle customers who call in. It does not have to involve completing an entire course of study or involve large numbers of staff.

Yes.

The requirement to file Form 397 was eliminated in 2019. Licensees that already filed Form 397 during their current license term should retain the form in their online public file until grant of their next license renewal application. When the need to conduct mid-term reviews of stations' EEO programs arises again in 2023, Commission staff will conduct the reviews using publicly available information.

Yes. If a licensee includes links to its stations' subpages, the link essentially constitutes a "station website" for purposes of the EEO public file report.

Yes, a station with fewer than five full-time staff has to respond to a random audit letter. Its response is shorter than others, however, because all we need are two things: a list of full-time staff listed by job title only (no names) and how many hours they are regularly assigned to work per week, and information on any discrimination charges that may have been filed against the station during the current license term.

Possibly. First, review your response to the earlier audit and see what EEO public file reports were submitted to the FCC for review. If your two most recent reports would both be new in a response to the new audit, you will probably be required to respond fully to the new audit. If one or neither report would be new, in other words if FCC staff has already reviewed the reports you would submit with a new audit, you probably will not be required to respond. You should contact the EEO staff to see whether you need to respond.

Possibly. Contact the EEO staff to see whether we would have enough activity to review to make the audit meaningful or not.

No. Some licensees, however, notify EEO staff when the response is uploaded into the station public file, but this notice is not required.

Send an e-mail to the EEO staff and explain why you are requesting an extension of time and how long of an extension you are requesting. The EEO staff will respond. We will not grant a request for an unreasonably long extension of time to respond to the audit letter.

Facility IDs are assigned by the FCC, and you cannot choose your own Facility ID. You can find your facility ID number in the FCC's CDBS and/or LMS databases. If you need a facility ID, contact the EEO staff. The EEO staff issues ID numbers for MVPD units.

A public file report is an annual report summarizing EEO activity required for all MVPD units that have six or more full-time staff. The report must be included in the unit's public file (including its online public file on the FCC website) by September 30 each year. Requirements for the report are listed in 47 CFR Section 76.1702(b).

A payroll period forms the basis for the start and end of the EEO public file report. You choose a two-week payroll period from July, August, or September, and use that as the start of a 12-month period for reporting EEO activity on the report. Regardless of the payroll period chosen, the report is due on September 30 each year.

The FCC decommissioned its Consolidated Database System (CDBS) in early 2022. The Form 396-C became available in July 2022 via the updated Cable Operations and Licensing System (COALS) filing platform at the FCC’s website. https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/coals.

COALS requires a Commission Registration System (CORES) username and password to which authority for one or more Federal Registration Numbers (FRNs) has been delegated. The former COALS IDs will no longer be used to access the system. To manage CORES usernames and passwords, please visit https://apps.fcc.gov/cores/userLogin.do. For additional information regarding FRNs and the CORES system, please visit https://www.fcc.gov/licensing-databases/commission-registration-system-….

The Form 396-C is available via the “EEO Filing Portal” in the updated COALS at https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/coals.

The EEO Filing Portal provides a dashboard separated into three sections. The first section labeled “396-Cs” lists all Forms 396-C on file with the FCC, including those that transitioned from CDBS. The second section labeled “New EUID Requests” lists an operator’s employment unit identification (EUID) number requests and the current status of those requests. The third section labeled “EUIDs” lists both active and inactive EUID numbers.

Yes, you can save your work on a Form 396-C in draft form before submitting. At the bottom of the form, you will see an option to “save as draft”. Once saved in draft form, it will appear in the first section of your dashboard and the filing status will read “draft”. When you are ready to file, open the draft, complete your form and select “submit”.

Yes, you can amend a Form 396-C once it has been filed. Once an amendment is submitted, the original Form 396-C will change to “Amended” status, and the newly filed Form 396-C will show as “Ready to Review”.

The COALS Form 396-C requires all Supplemental Investigation Sheet (SIS) responses---the job description(s), related SIS questions and EEO Public File Report---be submitted as attachments only.

"Ready to Review” means that the Form 396-C has been successfully submitted with the FCC..

 “In Progress” means the Form 396-C is under review by EEO staff.

“Closed-Certified” means the employment unit was found to be in compliance with the FCC’s MVPD EEO rules based on the information reflected in its Form 396-C, which is now closed. COALS delivers a Certificate of Compliance to the email address provided in the Form 396-C for the employment unit.

Yes, COALS has a Public Search function. Only forms that are “Closed-Certified” or “Not Certified” will be displayed to the public.

No, your EEO Filing Portal dashboard is only accessible by your CORES username and password.

Yes, an October 26, 2022 FCC webinar reviews the login, features, and capabilities of the updated COALS. A recording of the webinar is posted on the Commission’s website: www.fcc.gov and on the Commission’s YouTube page: www.youtube.com/FCC

Questions concerning the Form 396-C can be directed to EEO staff at EB-EEO@fcc.gov or (202)418-1450. For technical assistance with COALS, please contact coals_help@fcc.gov. For CORES matters, direct questions to COREShelp@fcc.gov.