AM Broadcasters, Engineers Await More Details in AM Revitalization NPRM

The NPRM is based on feedback that the commission received from various entities in the broadcast industry, an FCC official said. For example, elimination of the AM station “ratchet rule” and easing daytime and nighttime coverage rules were proposed previously by the broadcast industry and a media association, the official said. The ideas generally either came through formal documents filed with the commission or suggestions made through meetings with the FCC, the official said.

The NPRM, which acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn began circulating last week, proposes to eliminate the ratchet rule and modify AM antenna efficiency standards (CD Sept 20 p11). Clyburn’s initiative “is a major step forward in ensuring the sustainability of this essential service,” Minority Media & Telecom Council said in a news release. In 2009, MMTC provided proposals on relaxing AM nighttime community coverage standards and the efficiency standards for antennas, it said. Overhauling the AM radio rules “will promote diversity and competition, ease the path of entry for minorities and help remedy many of the present effects of past discrimination,” MMTC said.

There will be few benefits of the rulemaking unless it’s expanded to look at the allocation rules from a pro-service standpoint, said Ronald Rackley, an attorney at du Treil Lundin. The promise to have a window for AM stations to apply for FM translators “is going to ring hollow for most stations outside of isolated rural areas,” he said in a memo to his broadcast clients. AM stations that want translators “are going to have to take their place in line behind the thousands of FM translator applications that the FCC allowed to be filed by speculators a few years ago,” he said. “Many, especially in larger markets, are going to find that none are available."

Allowing AM stations to apply for FM translators is probably the quickest change to implement, and the one that will have the most immediate impact for a broad number of AM stations, said lawyer David Oxenford of Wilkinson Barker. But even that is limited, “as in many markets, there probably will not be anywhere near enough translator opportunities to provide one for every AM station,” he said in an email. In many cases, old AM stations in downtown locations are located on very valuable real estate, “sometimes more valuable than the stations themselves,” he said. The ability to move to out-of-town sites without having to meet strict city-grade coverage rules “can allow some of these stations to sell valuable sites and not have to worry about potentially having to shutter the station when they do,” he said.

Taking away the ratchet rule, changing daytime and nighttime community coverage rules and allowing wider implementation of Modulation Dependent Carrier Level control technologies are low-hanging fruit, said Donald Everist, president of Cohen Dippell, a broadcast engineer consulting firm. Other changes, such as redefining AM daytime service and interference contours and AM efficiency standards, would require coordination with Mexico and Canada, he said. The amount of activity on the international side with the upcoming broadcast incentive auctions and trying to get additional wireless bands will foreclose any immediate efforts on the AM side unless those countries are really interested in the AM band, he said.

Some of the proposals do have merit, but other issues must be addressed, said Ed De La Hunt of De La Hunt Broadcasting, a Minnesota-based owner of small-market stations. One “of the things that have long plagued AM that needs to be addressed is whether to continue requiring protection of clear channels 750 km away at night.” Relaxing the FM translators and allowing the window is something the commission can control and do very rapidly, he said. “But they really should be relaxing the translator processing rules for those that commit to re-broadcasting in AM stations.”