Second
Channel Displacements and
Full-Power City of License Changes
by Michael Brown,
Brown Broadcast Services
Short spacing waivers for displaced LPFMs
The FCC "Thin Air" decision letter explains most of what you'll need to
know. Doing this can be very time consuming - particularly in convincing the
affected short-spaced stations to agree to the plan. If I help, I would charge by the hour.
The key points are:
1. There must be airtight written agreements with the affected short-spaced stations to solve all interference complaints, or
discontinue operation
2. The affected stations must NOT be 3rd adjacent -- FCC is
statutorily prohibited from granting 3rd-adjacent waivers (at least for now)
3. The station will need to be facing
almost certain demise without the waivers.
4. It will help if it can be shown that there will be NO affected
persons within the interfering areas. This will probably be essential in convincing the affected short-spaced stations to agree to the plan.
The FCC will not grant the waivers on this issue alone.
City of License
Changes
These affect only full power stations, and not applicable to
LPFM, since LPFMs (and translators) have no city of license coverage requirements.
The full power station can normally move to a new community as a Minor
Change, IF the new location is mutually-exclusive with the old location, AND if they are not removing the last Local Service from a community.
In most cases, the applicant will propose a First Local Service to a
suburban city - the first station licensed to the particular community.
The community will need to pass a "Tuck" analysis (it functions as a
community, independent of the larger city it is adjacent to). In some cases, moves as much 180 miles can now be done as a Minor Change. This
"move-in" process is not new, and was happening anyway via Petitions for Rulemaking. But the new Rules allowing these as Minor Changes puts the
process on steroids, accelerating the pace of LPFM displacement.
Michael D. Brown, Brown Broadcast Services, Inc.
office: 503-245-6065 mike@brownbroadcast.com www.brownbroadcast.com
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