FCC Drafts Move Agency Closer to Implementing Local Community Radio Act
Two draft FCC items move the agency closer to implementing legislation signed into law in January 2011 letting the agency license low-power FM stations closer on the dial to full-power radio. Agency and industry officials said a draft rulemaking asks about technical provisions for second-adjacent separation, which would require LPFM outlets to be two notches on the dial away from full-power stations versus the current third-adjacent limit. The rulemaking also asks about waivers for second-adjacent rules, the officials said.
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The waivers have begun to draw lobbying on the eighth floor from full-power and LPFM interests, with some broadcasters likely to be concerned about that or provisions in another order affecting low-power stations that also circulated late last month, according to industry officials and filings in docket 99-25 (http://xrl.us/bmrfdc). Commissioner Mignon Clyburn recently said the draft items will help diversity by giving more opportunities to LPFM seekers. A bureau spokeswoman had no comment.
A Media Bureau order, circulated around the time of its draft implementing more parts of the Local Community Radio Act, would let the FCC finish processing applications from a translator auction in 2003, agency and industry officials said. They said the order would lift a cap imposed in 2007 on the number of requests for stations from each entity that would be granted fivefold from an earlier ruling, to 50. The order would limit each entity to getting a single translator in each market from the auction, commission and industry officials said.
The order sets up two geographic-based grids for the FCC to use in deciding whether to dismiss all remaining applications in Auction 83 in a particular market, agency and industry officials said. The first grid measuring about 31x31 -- each unit equals a minute of latitude or longitude -- would apply to each market and determine whether enough LPFM frequencies would be available for future allocation if translator construction permits were awarded, agency and industry officials said. They said if the “floor” of LPFM frequencies the FCC deems necessary to be available in that market would be precluded, all pending Auction 83 applications would be dismissed unless a translator made a showing that room would still be available for low-powers. If the floor would be preserved, a second test of about 21x21 would be used to see if a smaller area without the market had enough people living there to be considered an area that needed to have more LPFM possibilities, agency and industry officials. If the second test wasn’t met because there wouldn’t be enough future vacancies in the area, all translator applications would be denied, the officials said.
The LPFM rulemaking meanwhile refreshes the record after another notice was approved by commissioners before the act passed Congress in December 2010. An order that’s in the same document as the rulemaking would implement some other technical provisions of the act, FCC and industry officials said. They said the rulemaking asks many questions about technical and licensing rules, and appears to stick to asking about what was contained in the LPFM legislation.
LPFM backers “hope the commission will move swiftly on the auction” that bureau officials have promised for as soon as this summer of those stations (CD Sept 8 p12), said Prometheus Radio Project Policy Director Brandy Doyle. She acknowledged that meeting that deadline may be impossible, since a separate rulemaking would need to be conducted for the LPFM filing window. “A year after the passage of the Local Community Radio Act, we're looking forward to seeing implementation of the law,” Doyle said. She spoke with an aide to Clyburn twice last week to seek multiple LPFM filing windows and a “market-based translator processing plan” to ensure “frequencies for LPFM stations in populated areas,” a filing said (http://xrl.us/bmrfdi).
NAB said the act must be followed by the FCC in its entirety, and “cannot be read to create a provision for any particular secondary service.” LPFM stations are secondary to full power, and so must accept interference the bigger stations emit. Waivers of second-adjacent rules “should be considered only in truly exceptional circumstances, given the legislative history” of the act and its provisions, the association said. It said executives met with an aide to Clyburn (http://xrl.us/bmrfdv). The items “ideally would stimulate a radio presence of voices across America,” Clyburn said during Q-and-A Jan. 27 at a Minority Media and Telecom Council conference. “That is a positive. It might not be full power. But low power can lead to full power.” LPFM could be a “conduit” or “pathway” to “whatever you call success,” she continued. “I may need to start here, with a low power presence, to move to full power.”