NABOB Wants FCC to Eliminate Skywave Protections
The FCC should take action now to eliminate skywave protections for Class A radio stations, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters said in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. NABOB supports the tentative conclusion in the AM revitalization…
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Further NPRM that critical hours protections for Class A stations should be eliminated, and that some protections from co-channel stations and first adjacent channel stations should remain. Though technical objections to eliminating skywave protections have been offered up by opponents of NABOB's stance, those objections are "unfounded," the group said. The skywave protections are a legacy of a time when many communities didn't have their own local radio stations and had to rely on distant stations for information, the association said. “That rationale is no longer applicable in 2016, almost all communities receive local AM and/or FM service.” When the Class A licenses were given out in the 1920s and '40s, discriminatory laws and policies blocked African-Americans from owning the stations, NABOB said. “When African Americans were able to enter the industry, it was often though ownership of less valuable stations.” Eliminating skywave protections would be “an enormous benefit” to local stations that can't operate at night because of those rules, NABOB said. Class A stations are a draw to the AM band in the same way an “anchor tenant” big box store is to a shopping center, proponents of the skywave protections have said (see 1603220054).