FCC Draft Approves AM Use of FM Translators
A draft FCC order recently recirculated would let AM stations use FM translators to broadcast more completely to the entire market they're licensed to serve, said agency and industry officials. That would in turn boost the value of AM stations, said dealmakers. The new draft would limit the use of cross-band translators, sought for years by many broadcasters, to existing translators and wouldn’t allow for new ones or for them to be used to expand coverage areas, they said. In his waning days as chairman, Kevin Martin pulled from circulation a similar order without those limits, they said.
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Acting Chairman Michael Copps circulated the revised Media Bureau draft order April 22, said the FCC’s Web site. He didn’t set a deadline for commissioners to vote on the new item, and it hasn’t yet been approved by all FCC members, said agency officials. The new order seems to have few changes from the one pulled by Martin except for the use restrictions, said one. The proposal likely won’t be controversial among FCC members, said another. The order would respond to a 2006 petition from the NAB. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.
Barring newly-built translators from being used by AM stations partly addresses concerns that the service would be used by winners of a 2003 FCC auction of FM translators (CD Nov 27/07 p2), said an FCC official. Such translator use might limit the availability of new low-power FM stations. “Auction 83 translators should not be eligible for use by AM stations until after the Commission has resolved the parity between translators and low-power radio stations,” said an ex parte filing from the Media Access Project, which met with aides to all commissioners and with a bureau official last week.
The revised draft addresses some of the group’s concerns by placing some limits on translator use, but it doesn’t limit them to one per AM station as it wanted, said Parul Desai, MAP vice president. “We would like to have seen some kind of limit so it’s clear this is limited to a fill-in” service, she said. “It’s important that the commission make clear that there is still an LPFM rulemaking in place.” AM stations “provide some of the most localized programming” in the U.S. but “face a number of technical challenges, including interference from both natural and man-made obstacles,” said an NAB spokesman. Using translators “will greatly” help them serve local audiences, and the group backs the order, he said.
By improving the reach of signals of AM stations, some of which must stop broadcasting at night or reduce power levels to prevent interference, the order would increase their value, said dealmakers. “AM stations, given parity with the FM stations, certainly take on the value of an FM station,” which “is generally worth more,” said Kalil & Co. President Frank Kalil. But that could reduce the relative value of FM stations, said Kalil. “Oddly enough,” there’s much interest in AM stations by would-be buyers, given the recession, said Kalil. “They're a bunch of people getting into broadcasting that couldn’t afford it before.”
Such translators won’t reduce the absolute value of FM stations because they'll let more people listen to radio and increase its overall audience, said David Honig, executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. The FCC order, if approved, will help minorities because they're more likely to own an AM station than an FM or TV station, said Honig. He agreed with Kalil that interest in AM stations is “brisk,” but said financing is hard to find. “The AM stations that minorities own, tend to, on average, to have inferior signals,” said Honig. “Minorities got in late so they didn’t have the chance to buy the high-quality signals.”