ATLANTA-CNN announced this week that it became the first organization to be granted a waiver by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly unmanned aerial systems over people in the United States. The FAA continues to work on overall rules for drone flight over people and expects to issue a proposal for comment this winter. In the meantime, CNN said it received a certificate of waiver to operate the Fotokite Pro, a tethered platform that weighs less than two pounds, over uncovered people who are not directly participating in the UAS operation. As part of the waiver approval process, CNN also said that it demonstrated to the FAA that its operations could be conducted safely.
Current FAA rules prohibit flight within 500 feet of those not involved in the operation of the drone. Rules adopted in late June that went into effect Monday, Aug. 29, narrowed that down to restricting flight over people, with a couple of modifications:
First, this rule will allow a small unmanned aircraft to be operated over a person who is inside a stationary covered vehicle. Second, this rule will make the restriction on operating a small unmanned aircraft over people waivable. This will allow the FAA to consider, on a case-by-case basis, any additional mitigations that are incorporated into a small UAS operation. The FAA will grant a waiver request allowing small unmanned aircraft flight over people if the applicant establishes that his or her operation can safely be conducted under the terms of a certificate of waiver.
CNN's waiver builds on its work advocating for the use of drones by news organizations. In 2015, CNN was selected by the FAA as one of the first three industry Pathfinders to develop safe uses of UAS in newsgathering, particularly in urban populated areas. Two weeks ago, CNN announced CNN Aerial Imagery and Reporting-CNN AIR-a designated unit with two full-time UAS operators to fully integrate aerial imagery and reporting across all CNN networks and platforms, along with Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner entities. (See, CNN Creates Drone Unit , Aug. 18, 2016.)
We are thrilled to receive the FAA's approval to fly UAS over people, said David Vigilante, senior vice president of Legal for CNN. The use of UAS has huge promise for newsgatherers and consumers of news. The ability to fly over people is a huge step forward, and a necessary one as we cover the news where it happens. We look forward to continue to work in partnership with the FAA to move UAS policy boundaries forward for the industry.
Not only is this a milestone moment for CNN, this approval is a milestone for the commercial UAS industry as a whole, said Lisa Ellman, co-chair of Hogan Lovells' UAS Practice and co-director of the Commercial Drone Alliance. Many of the most promising UAS uses require safe operation near and over people that might not be involved with the flight. CNN's success paves the way for the rest of the commercial UAS industry as we seek to safely and broadly integrate commercial drones into our airspace.
Also see
Aug. 30, 2016
CNN AIR: Q&A With Greg Agvent
We are all just scratching the surface of what's possible. Certainly for the business we're in, video is a driver, and a natural starting point. We are operating in essentially in three video buckets: Production value; Enhanced storytelling; Context and understanding; but different sensors will create different data and add context beyond just the picture.
Aug. 30, 2016
FAA Issues CNN Waiver to Fly Drones Over People
The regulations adopted on June 21, 2016 officially take effect today, Aug. 29.
Aug. 29, 2016
FAA Drone Rules Go Into Effect
The regulations adopted on June 21, 2016 officially take effect today, Aug. 29.
Aug. 18, 2016
CNN Creates Drone Unit
CNN was selected by the FAA as one of the first three industry Pathfinders to develop safe uses of UAS in newsgathering.
Aug. 3, 2016
FAA to Propose Drone Flight Over People Rule by Winter
Federal regulators will address drone flight over people in a proposal due out for comment this winter.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
ATLANTA-CNN announced this week that it became the first organization to be granted a waiver by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly unmanned aerial systems over people in the United States. The FAA continues to work on overall rules for drone flight over people and expects to issue a proposal for comment this winter. In the meantime, CNN said it received a certificate of waiver to operate the Fotokite Pro, a tethered platform that weighs less than two pounds, over uncovered people who are not directly participating in the UAS operation. As part of the waiver approval process, CNN also said that it demonstrated to the FAA that its operations could be conducted safely. 
