Room Left for Low Power in FCC Draft Order on FM Translators

A draft order upholding an earlier FCC decision is a step along a path for new low-power FM stations because the translators dealt with in the current item are limited for each applicant, commission officials said. The order is likely to be approved without much eighth-floor controversy and outside a commission meeting, an official said. It upholds an earlier order limiting to 10 the number of applications from any entity that will be granted in Auction No. 83, several commission and industry officials said.

The order doesn’t directly allow for the formation of more low-power FM stations and instead saves space for new ones since the several thousand translators sought by only a few applicants won’t all occupy other frequencies, they said. The bureau circulated the order, Creation of a Low Power Service, March 11, the commission’s website said. The item denies petitions for reconsideration by several broadcasters that had objected to the cap of 10 in the 2007 order, commission officials said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the pending item.

Congress would need to pass legislation allowing for third-adjacent spacing between low- and full-power FM stations for the commission to let new LPFMs operate in closer proximity to full-power counterparts, said commission and industry officials. That would let a low-power broadcaster at 90.5 MHz operate if a full-power station was at 91.1 MHz, for instance. So the pending order is one area among several where action is needed to allow more LPFMs, said Vice President Parul Desai of the Media Access Project, representing Prometheus Radio Project. The item “adresses some of our concerns,” she said. “We're hoping it’s an indirect effect. We're still in a situation where we don’t know where the 10 allotments will go for each entity -- they could still take up some of the prime allotments the LPFMs wanted, but we're hoping this will at least minimize the impact on LPFMs.” Prometheus lobbies on behalf of low-power radio.

Dismissing thousands of translator applications across-the-board seems inconsistent with a recent FCC order allowing cross-band use of translators, said lawyer David Oxenford of Davis Wright, representing the Educational Media Foundation. “The source for many potential translators for AM stations will disappear,” since new FM translators can’t be used for that purpose, he said. “It’s also going to make a lot of rural areas less likely to get translator service, because if you limit applications to 10 they're going to file” in urban areas, he continued. The foundation is among those that sought reconsideration of the bureau’s 2007 order, which is at http://xrl.us/bg3gzj. Last week, the foundation proposed the FCC mediate disputes between low-power and translator entities (CD March 30 p11).

"We thought there was an opportunity for a voluntary resolution” between advocates on both sides, Oxenford said. “If the FCC was to promote that avenue, we think there could be a voluntary resolution.” A spokesman for the NAB declined to comment on the pending item. For Prometheus, “a cap of 10 is better than no cap at all,” said Desai. “Initially we just wanted them to decide the priority issues in favor of us,” which was among the issues in a rulemaking in the 2007 order.