LPFM Supporters Worried About Looming LPFM Filing Window Amid Government Shutdown

Applicants are having difficulty accessing their applications on the Consolidated Database System (CDBS) website, said Todd O'Boyle, a program director at Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Reform initiative. “Several of these applications face problems,” he said, “so hopefully the commission can extend the window or make some accommodation for applicants that are shut out right now.”

If the shutdown continues for long, the window will be imperiled, said David Oxenford, a full-power and translator radio attorney at Wilkinson Barker. Applicants have no access to FCC databases, including the CDBS LPFM finder tool that allows them to see where stations might fit, he said. And “they can’t even start to fill in their applications, as the application filing database is offline,” he said.

The delay’s impact depends on the length of the shutdown, said Matt Wood, Free Press policy director. “It will depend on whether the shutdown ends a week before the window’s supposed to open on Oct. 15, right before Oct. 15, or at some point well after that important date.” Even if the commission would like the window to open as planned, it remains restricted under the shutdown, he said: “I trust that the FCC staff has a lot of the groundwork in place to go ahead right now -- but no matter how good their plans are, the [Media] bureau won’t be able to carry them out if they're locked out of the building."

Even if the shutdown doesn’t continue through the filing window, the FCC’s efforts toward LPFM implementation will be slowed down, said Tracy Rosenberg, Media Alliance executive director. There will be some applicants who don’t have help from engineers, attorneys and others with FCC experience, she said. For those applicants, “anything that interferes with the ability to get prompt assistance from the FCC is going to result in applicant discouragement and in mistakes in applications,” she said. The Media Bureau has acknowledged that the Local Community Radio Act means community organizations that have never done so before will connect with the commission, she said. They include groups that aren’t used to dealing with the FCC “in the way that larger media institutions have folks on staff who know the ropes,” she said. “There are folks inside the bureau who have been thinking about the things they can do to maximize accessibility and communication,” she said. “The work that they're dong in one way or another is going to be delayed by the shutdown."

The Thursday webinar was intended to be a Q-and-A period (CD Sept 23 p16). It would have been very useful, said Sanjay Jolly, policy director for Prometheus Radio Project. “Because these are local organizations, these are not the most policy-literate applicants.” However, the webinar probably wasn’t absolutely necessary, he said. “If you don’t have your act together now, you'll be very hard pressed to get your act together within two weeks of the window.” Most applicants likely are prepared by now, Wood said. But “the shutdown and loss of the webinar clearly are disruptive,” he said. “The purpose of community radio is to empower new communities and voices, so the loss of these opportunities to learn about the application process is just another unfortunate side effect of the current stalemate."

The webinar was critical because a lot of groups remain on the fence, said Rosenberg. “The availability of resources like that is a really important part of the process for groups deciding to go forward rather than, at the last minute, concluding that they don’t have the resources and knowledge and experience as much as they like the idea,” she said. It was scheduled for a reason and applicants may need to address remaining issues, said O'Boyle. For many applicants, “this is the final polish stage and they want to make sure their applications are really top-quality,” he said. “This is a really critical time to make sure that whatever outstanding changes or revisions need to be made do get made."

The media policy professionals said they expect the commission to figure out a solution. If the shutdown greatly interferes with the FCC’s ability to respond to applicants, there should be an error correction period or an extension, Rosenberg said. “It’s not 100 percent realistic that every community group in the country can file a flawless LPFM application the first time out,” she said. “All in all, it would not surprise me if the window is extended,” Oxenford said.

Setting up an automated window could be a possibility, said Jolly. But it’s unclear how confident the bureau is that it can do so without any significant personnel on hand to deal with complications, he said. Given the Oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline, “folks are pretty confident that the FCC will be back in line before then,” Jolly added. The Media Bureau couldn’t be reached for comment.