3-20-2012
To help us simplify Low Power FM's and the Local Community Radio Act we turned to broadcast attorney John Garziglia. Here's what he had to say about the information the FCC sent out yesterday. "The best way to approach what the FCC did Monday with FM translators and LPFMs is from the viewpoint of broadcasters and, in particular, AM stations who might be hoping to obtain an FM translator in the future."
There are now several thousand FM translator applications pending from the FCC?s 2003 Auction #83 filing window. The FCC?s decision largely determines what will happen with those pending translator applications. For the existing several thousand FM translator applications, the FCC has essentially split the pending applications into two categories. The first category are those applications in most of the top 150 Arbitron markets. In the second category are those applications anywhere else, mostly in small markets and rural areas.
Before processing any of the FM translator applications, the FCC will require that applicants that have in excess of 50 applications pending choose 50 applications that the applicant will continue to prosecute, with all other being dismissed. Also, any applicant with more than one application in any of the Arbitron markets that are deemed LPFM-challenged will be required to dismiss all but one FM translator application.
The FCC intends to process small market and rural area pending FM translator applications under its existing translator processing procedures. This means that pending applications that are singletons which are not mutually-exclusive with any other application will likely be granted. Those applications that are mutually exclusive with another translator application will be afforded a settlement window in order to resolve the conflict. If the conflict is not resolved, the applications will go to auction to determine which will be granted.
For FM translator applications now pending in many of the top 150 Arbitron markets, most of those applications will be dismissed based upon a calculation by the FCC that there must be a certain minimum number of new LPFM stations in a grid laid upon those markets. There will be limited opportunities in some of the top 150 Arbitron markets for FM translator applicants to make a showing that a grant of an FM translator application will not preclude any LPFM station from being granted.
The FCC will now allow any of these now pending FM translator applications that are granted to be used to carry an AM station.
There are a few broadcasters that had the foresight in 2003 to file FM translator applications. For those broadcasters with FM translator applications pending, it appears that a grant of some or most of those applications in the more rural areas might finally occur. For most other broadcasters, however, the prospect of obtaining an FM translator to carry an AM station will be based upon the fortune of there being another applicant who did apply for an FM translator in proximity to the AM station, and that applicant being willing to sell or otherwise make available that FM translator to the AM station after being granted.
Fore more articles from John Garziglia go HERE
John F. Garziglia is a Communications Law Attorney with Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice in Washington, DC and can be reached at (202) 857-4455 or jgarziglia@wcsr.com. Have a question for our "Ask The Attorney" feature? Send to edryan@radioink.com.
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