Last week, the FCC mailed the first of its Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) audit letters for 2010 to randomly selected radio and television stations. Under the FCC’s rules, the FCC must annually audit the EEO programs of randomly selected broadcast licensees and multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPDs). Each year, approximately five percent of all radio and television stations and MVPDs are selected for these EEO audits. Click here for a list of the radio and television stations to which the audit letters were sent, as well as the text of the audit letter. The list and the letter can also be viewed by accessing the Media Bureau’s EEO page on the FCC website at http://www.fcc.gov/mb/policy/eeo.

The FCC also reminds stations that have both a website and five or more full-time employees to post their most recent EEO public file report on their websites by the deadline by which they must place this report in their public file. The FCC will examine these reports as part of the audit, and warns stations that failure to post the required report on a website is a violation of the EEO Rule and may be subject to sanctions, including a forfeiture.