The FCC’s Media Bureau has officially changed its rules to reflect the fact that broadcasters aren’t required to report employee demographic data to the commission.
This change doesn’t have any practical effect on station operations because the collection of such data stopped 25 years ago.
But in 2024 the FCC, under the previous presidential administration, had tried to revive the program. A federal appeals court in May of 2025 then blocked that, and now the Media Bureau has changed the wording of its rules accordingly.
The outcome does not affect other aspects of the FCC’s EEO rules for broadcasters.
Background
Starting in 1970 the FCC had used Form 395-B to collect race, ethnicity and gender data until the practice was suspended in 2001.
In 2024, under the Biden administration, the FCC reinstated the form to collect employment data from most broadcasters, though collection never actually resumed.
The FCC argued that the data would give it a better understanding of workforce composition. It said collection was in the public interest and required under law and that the information would not be for enforcement but for analyzing broadcast industry trends.
But the data would have been available to the public, an aspect of the vote that raised the stakes around this issue.
The National Religious Broadcasters, one of its members and the Texas Association of Broadcasters filed separate suits to block the mandate; those cases were later consolidated.
They said the order violated the First and Fifth Amendments and that the FCC lacked authority for the change. Religious broadcasters also were concerned about the inclusion of a “non-binary” gender option, saying it could force them to recognize genders outside of male and female.
In 2025 a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said the FCC had overstepped its bounds and lacked the statutory authority to require disclosure.
Now under the Trump administration, the FCC did not appeal. Chairman Brendan Carr considered the FCC’s 2024 move “an unlawful effort to pressure businesses into discriminating based on race and gender,” as he wrote in a social media post last year.
The Media Bureau now has updated Parts 73 and 74 of its rules to conform to the court ruling. It said this is also part of its efforts in the “Delete Delete” proceeding to remove rules that no longer are in effect.
