FCC Media Bureau Grants 150 FM Translator Construction Permits From 2003 Auction 83 Filing Window
The FCC Media Bureau granted 150 applications for new FM translator construction permits that were held up by the 2005 freeze placed on those applications from Auction 83 to allow the commission to figure out how to expand low-power FM service. The action put an end to the freeze, which was formally ended in last year’s fifth order on reconsideration, a bureau spokesperson said. Applicants who took advantage of the 2003 window for the translators have waited about 10 years for a decision on those applications. The bureau released a public notice Wednesday identifying almost 40 new translator stations that were granted (http://bit.ly/176n3vw).
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The grants announced so far went to applicants who filed for 713 tech box proposals that were singleton applications outside spectrum-limited markets and fully spaced to all spectrum limited market grids, the spokesperson said. The deadline for these applications was March 28 (CD Feb 27 p23). At this point, the bureau expects to work steadily through these applications, and it will grant about 600 applications by June 1, the spokesperson said.
The commission imposed a 6-month freeze in 2005 (CD March 21/05 p3). Prometheus Radio Project filed a petition for the freeze then to urge the FCC not to give away available spectrum prior to the LPFM window (CD March 10/05 p12). Prometheus is “gratified to see the seriousness with which the [Media Bureau] Audio Division has been moving forward on translator processing,” said Brandy Doyle, policy director. “It’s been a long wait both for translator applicants and LPFM hopefuls who've been waiting more than 12 years since the last window,” she said. “We hope to see the translator processing continue to allow for a timely LPFM window."
If the FCC hadn’t frozen the process and looked into it, “there'd be hundreds, if not, thousands of translators that would have been granted, and it would have taken away many or most opportunities for LPFM,” said Andrew Schwartzman, a public interest attorney who headed the since-shuttered Media Access Project. MAP requested an extension of the freeze so that the commission had time to consider all data collected in the proceeding (CD Sept 19/05 p6).
Due to the delay, applicants had to make adjustments to business plans and find other ways to serve listeners, a lawyer and a station executive said. The FCC waited too long to finally come to terms with what it had to do, said Alan Kilgore, chief engineer at WRVM(FM) Suring, Wis. “There were a lot of challenges that were unexpected by the 2003 window opening.” WRVM was granted two translator applications so far. “The freeze taking so long has really caused problems and caused people to be innovative in how they used what was available to accomplish needed results,” said Kilgore. WRVM decided to acquire translators from other licensees to serve listeners in potential translator locations, he said. “We have some areas that we'll now begin to serve because of the new translators that are being granted, but because we've acquired others, the new ones may become extra ones for us,” he said. “We'll have to decide how we'll use them or whether we'll let others use them."
It’s been a “long and tortured process,” said communications lawyer Dawn Sciarrino of Sciarrino & Schubert. She represents Edgewater Broadcasting and Radio Assist Ministries. But the licensees “are very pleased that the commission is finally moving these translator applications,” she said. The excessive delay caused both ministries “to adjust their business plans that were in place when the window was opened,” she said. “The market has changed, funding has changed, many things have changed in 10 plus years.”
Kilgore attributes the action to the effort from Congress and the FCC to proceed with an LPFM window through the 2010 Local Community Radio Act (CD Dec 21/10 p7), he said. “I wonder how much longer this would still be stretched out if it were not for that demand.” However, the process has taken a lot of forethought and planning, he said. “Eventually something had to happen,” Sciarrino said. “The commission didn’t anticipate the demand for the translators at the time it opened the window,” she said. “I think that the entire proceeding just got caught up in a regulatory quagmire.” The passage of the bill, negotiation and compromise on the part of the applicants “all went to finally breaking open the proceeding,” she said.
The process, the uncertainty “about what kind of spacing was going to be available for LPFM,” and the legislation “all combined together is what took it so long, and that’s just the way it is,” Schwartzman said. The commission plans to open a filing window for new LPFM applications in October (CD Dec 3 p1).