Pirate Radio Threat Real Despite Closing of FCC Field Offices, Broadcasters Say

Concerns remain about FCC Enforcement Bureau field office closings, fives months after the agency approved a compromise proposal that avoided some of the closings initially proposed by Chairman Tom Wheeler, who said in July that after five years of flat budgets the agency had little choice.

Commissioners agreed to close field offices in Anchorage; Buffalo; Detroit; Houston; Kansas City, Missouri; Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Juan; Seattle; and Tampa (see 1507160036). But the FCC is maintaining a presence in Alaska and Puerto Rico. Offices remain open in Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Columbia, Maryland; Dallas; Denver; Honolulu; Los Angeles; Miami; New Orleans; New York; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco.

The FCC in July confirmed a commitment to taking on pirate radio operations. But in that area in particular, critics, led by Commissioner Ajit Pai, say the FCC has dropped the ball.

In a Dec. 3 speech to the Institute on Telecommunications Policy & Regulation, Pai said when the FCC first considered even deeper cuts to the field offices, many people told him the commission didn't think field agents did important work. “Tower inspections didn’t generate excitement,” he said. “Ensuring that broadcast stations operated in a manner consistent with their licenses was passé. Pirate radio was a distraction.”

Pai read from a 2014 email, which he said he got from a whistleblower within the Enforcement Bureau, from the bureau’s Northeast Regional director to field agents. “We are scaling back on our response to pirate operations. Barring interference to a safety service, pirates should NOT be given a high priority (If there’s interference to a safety service, it’s not a ‘pirate case’ but instead a ‘safety case.’)”

“Broadcasters are extremely troubled by the revelation that field offices were told to downgrade pirate radio enforcement,” an NAB spokesman said. “The central mission of the FCC is to prevent harmful interference, not just to broadband, but especially for lawful lifeline services like local radio. … The FCC should use all of its tools to stop illegal radio operations that disenfranchise listeners.”

The FCC July field modernization order "expressly prioritized radio frequency interference work by the field offices," a commission spokesman said. "The order better positions the agency to do effective radio interference detection and resolution. It also established new systems to substantially improve coordination between the field offices and the rest of the Enforcement Bureau."

Michael Marcus, a former FCC engineer who now runs a spectrum consultancy, said when industry complained about pirate radio, the FCC responded “of course” it would address the issue. “But there’s nothing resembling a real plan of action,” he said. “A lot of people think FM piracy is a victimless crime” because there has been little demonstration of interference to other FM operations, Marcus said. “If you’re an FM pirate, you probably don’t get an FCC-approved transmitter and God knows, besides transmitting in the frequency you want to transmit, where it’s also transmitting.” Rogue FM transmissions are an interference threat to both public safety and aviation communications, he said.

Pirate radio has been a problem for a “long, long time,” said Francisco Montero, managing partner at Fletcher, Heald, who represents broadcasters. Pirate radio broadcasters are a special problem in the New York metropolitan area, northern California, and in central and south Florida. “It’s spreading as the budget for the field offices has been cut back,” he said. “The ability to take enforcement action against these pirate stations has been really minimalized in a lot of places.”

Smaller stations face a special threat, Montero said. “The Spanish-language stations I work with, they’re the ones that are getting really clobbered by this." The FCC’s lack of progress in tackling pirate radio points to a broader concern at the current FCC, he said. “The broadcasting industry just doesn’t take a very high priority over there,” he said. “You have an Enforcement Bureau that’s just sort of broken.” Even though the FCC didn't cut as many field offices as originally proposed, the cuts were still deep, Montero said. He cited Puerto Rico, which no longer has its own field office. “They’re an island,” he said. “They’re out there.”

Industry officials said there are other reasons for concern. The bureau recently posted a list of public safety interference complaints from April and May. Of the 69 public safety cases reported during those two months, 28 were investigated by offices slated for closure, a review of the record found. “With the corresponding reduction in field staff, one has to question whether the reorganized field will be able to handle the existing public safety case load,” said a former FCC legal advisor.

Mark Crosby, president of the Enterprise Wireless Alliance, said it’s probably too early to judge whether the FCC has found a reasonable solution in its changes to the bureau. “EWA would like to believe that they have,” Crosby said. “We are, however, looking forward to the development of the portal capability that will enable the filing, recognition, prioritization and enforcement resolution initiatives across all wireless disciplines. The portal automatically formalizes the process providing, at a minimum, confidence that the FCC has at least received a request for assistance. It will be a tremendous step forward.”