FCC Radio Translator Order Among Last Items Getting Adelstein OK
An FCC radio order among the last items approved under the interim chairmanship of Michael Copps allows for the creation of cross-band translators (CD May 13 p3) so AM stations can fill in their coverage areas, said agency and industry officials. Approved 3-0, it was among the last items Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein voted on and didn’t need approval from Julius Genachowski because he hadn’t been sworn in yet when it was adopted, said an agency official.
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The FCC confirmed Monday the order was approved on circulation -- like all other items set for a vote by the monthly meeting Thursday. (See separate report in this issue.) The meeting now will focus on broadband. There still will be a brief discussion of how well the June 12 DTV transition went, said an agency spokesman. The Sunshine Notice for the July 2 meeting hadn’t mentioned the DTV presentation, prompting some to think it was off. Another FCC spokesman declined to comment on the radio order.
The radio order lets AM stations use FM translators operating since at least May 1 to fill in their markets, said an agency official. A recent revision to the order set that as the date after discussion amongst commissioners and their aides, the person said. The order effectively excludes almost all translators applied for in a 2003 auction that netted 20,000 applications, many of them conflicting with each other (CD Nov 27/07 p3), said several agency and industry officials.
The change helped resolve concerns expressed by Prometheus Radio Project, a group of low-power FM stations, that spectrum for that type of broadcaster to use would be crowded out by new AM translators, said agency and industry officials. Vice President Parul Desai of the Media Access Project, representing Prometheus, said, “I just hope this actually benefits the smaller owners, the minority owners, as it was intended to.” The NAB petitioned the FCC in 2006 for such an order. It declined to comment, said a spokesman.
The order will help minority-owned AM stations and those in the band who can’t transmit at night, said industry officials. “There are a lot of AM stations that are going to become competitive, and there will be better programming for the public” since stations barred from nighttime broadcasts because of interference concerns can expand or change formats by broadcasting around the clock, said lawyer David O'Neil. Local and regional sports programming now becomes a possibility at those stations, said O'Neil, whose firm represents AM and FM broadcasters.
People of color who own radio stations, more likely to be AMs, can use cross-band translators to overcome “inferior signals” at the edge of urban areas to serve “center cities to compete with other broadcasters that have that competitive advantage,” said Executive Director David Honig of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council. “It’s a race- neutral initiative but it’s a perfect example of an initiative that will disproportionately benefit minority broadcasters.”