• Allows the transfer of LFPM licenses subject to significant limitations.
• Reinstates the Commission’s rule that all LPFM authorization holders be local to the community and limits ownership to one station per licensee.
• Clarifies that repetitious, automated programming does not meet the local origination requirement.
• Encourages voluntary time-sharing agreements between applicants.
• Imposes an application cap on 2003 FM translator window filers.
• Limits the responsibility of LPFM stations to resolve interference caused to subsequently authorized full-service stations.
• Establishes a procedural framework for considering short-spacing waivers and a going forward displacement policy for LPFM stations.

The rule changes have been broadly welcomed by the Prometheus Radio Project, if with some caveats:

Today, Chairman Martin and Commissioners Adelstein and Copps should be congratulated for moving to protect and expand low power FM radio – while also understanding that there are many issues we can resolve through further research and conversation. The Federal Communications Commission has taken a number of important steps today towards a better future for low power radio stations and their communities. We appreciate the partial support of Commissioners Mcdowell and Tate, and feel confident that the concerns they raised are addressable to their satisfaction. 

Pete Tridish points out that the translator issue – which I mentioned in my recent post – has been partially addressed in a decision “to limit translator applications from 2003 to 10 applications per entity” but that more discussion is needed to come up with ways that will “allow the reasonable use of translators, while preserving significant opportunity for community radio stations to be born.”There’s a lot of detail in the order, and in a new Notice of Proposed Rule-making, calling for comment on a range of further proposals, including calling on Congress to remove the third-channel adjacent restrictions, and proposing that the next filing window in radio be for more LPFM stations. I haven’t had a chance to chew on the detail yet, but definitely a lot of good news there, with more (potentially) to come. ]]> http://funferal.org/blog/2007/11/28/fcc-adopt-new-lpfm-rules/feed/ 1 http://funferal.org/blog/2007/11/24/interesting-times-for-lpfm/ http://funferal.org/blog/2007/11/24/interesting-times-for-lpfm/#comments Sun, 25 Nov 2007 03:37:02 +0000 Andrew Ó Baoill http://funferal.org/blog/2007/11/24/interesting-times-for-lpfm/ These are interesting times for LPFM. First, a bill to allow LPFM on ’3rd adjacent channels’ has just passed a US senate committee. Those familiar with the service will probably know that the original FCC proposal for an LPFM service, back in the 1990s, was subsequently amended by Congress after established radio lobbies (NAB and, shamefully, NPR) persuaded Congress that there would be ‘oceans of interference’ if LPFM stations were allowed into operation. As phlegm explains at DIYmedia the original FCC proposal had involved allowing LPFM stations as long as they might not interfere with channels on the same or adjacent channels – the compromise passed by Congress severely limited the number of LPFM stations possible by extending that requirement to the second and third adjacent channels on each side, the same standard as is used for full-power stations.

Subsequent research established that LPFM could not cause the problems claimed by NAB. Now Liz Berg at WFMU notes that bill S.1675 (the Local Community Radio Act) has moved out of the Commerce Committee:

Prometheus Radio and Free Press are encouraging LPFM supporters to write to their representatives in support of S.1675.

Thanks to Kate for the pointers.

The other bit of news in LPFM policy this week is the move from the FCC to amend its LPFM rules at its next meeting this coming Tuesday (27th November). No word yet as to what the exact shape of those new rules will be, but the Prometheus Project has clear ideas as to what it wants to see:

As the commission works at its November 27th meeting to make decisions about the future of LPFM, they must lay the groundwork to ensure that LPFM will not only be available in rural areas in the future. They must also protect the low power stations from losing their frequencies to full power stations that encroach upon their signals, and threaten to knock them off the air.

One of the larger issues at play is the glut of translator applications, currently on hold, which were made after Congress blocked LPFM from the third adjacent channel. And so Prometheus argue:

The FCC has frozen the granting of translator licenses for the time being, to investigate the practices of these chains and to balance the priority of distant translator use with the needs of local radio. The FCC cannot move to lift the current freeze on the granting of licenses to these translator chains without prioritizing local radio over these distant-fed translators.

For those wondering just how big of a glut this is:

In that 2003 window, a single translator applicant applied for 2500 licenses to broadcast, nationwide. One radio station currently has 792 translator applications repeating its signal.

The FCC aren’t currently accepting comment from the public – there’s a block in advance of rule-making – but watch this space, and groups like Prometheus, for word on just how events at the FCC and in Congress develop. In the meantime, as mentioned above, do encourage members of Congress to support S.1675.