Future Translator Window Should Be in Draft Order, Say Pai Office, Broadcast Attorneys
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's support of an AM-only FM translator application window after the incentive auction shouldn't prevent her from supporting Commissioner Ajit Pai's call to have the translator window included in the AM Revitalization draft order, a spokesman for Pai told us Friday. “There's no reasonable explanation” in the statement Clyburn released Thursday for not supporting the window, Pai's spokesman said. Clyburn said the incentive auction would prevent AM broadcasters from being able to use the translator window until 2017 (see 1510010069), but Pai's spokesman said Clyburn could push to have the translator window included in the draft order with language stipulating that it be opened after the auction. Pai would support such a compromise, the spokesman said, though it wouldn't be his “first choice.” Clyburn's office wouldn't comment.
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Pai, Clyburn and most broadcasters support including both the translator window and the Chairman Tom Wheeler-supported proposal to allow stations to relocate FM translators from up to 250 miles away in an AM revitalization order, Pai's spokesman said. “This is an example of everything wrong with Washington,” the spokesman said. “Wheeler made this a partisan issue,” the spokesman said. “We understand extraordinary pressure has been put on Democrats,” to prevent them from voting along with Pai, the spokesman said. The FCC declined to comment.
Broadcast attorneys interviewed Thursday and Friday said they're skeptical of assurances that an AM-only FM translator license application window would be opened down the road if they aren't backed up in writing in the draft revitalization order. “I would like something more complete, this is too amorphous,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Frank Montero, who represents AM clients who want the window to be opened. A draft order that included a mechanism to open the window that would be triggered after the incentive auction would provide more certainty to broadcasters, he said. “If everybody is of the opinion we should do this in the future, let's have it written in the order.”
The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters urged Pai Thursday in an ex parte filing to support Clyburn's proposal, just a day after filing a joint ex parte with NAB and Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council expressly stating that the 250-mile waiver proposal wasn't enough to help AM without the translator window. “This compromise gets some AM relief now and ends the stalemate at the commission,” said NABOB President Jim Winston in Thursday's letter. He praised the waiver proposal in the draft order because it prioritizes class C and D licenses, giving them their own 180-day window for moving a translator before other stations. A second waiver window after that will allow any AM station to apply to move a translator.
Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Peter Doyle criticized combining the translator window with the 250-mile waiver proposal during a panel at the 2015 Radio Show Thursday. He said he didn't believe AM stations would look to relocate translators for immediate relief if they knew they would get an exclusive window later. It would “take the air out of the balloon,” he said.
AM broadcaster fears that large market AM stations will monopolize the 250-mile waiver process or drive up translator prices are unfounded, Doyle said. Big market stations will be “minor players” for translators because their markets don't have the spare spectrum to accommodate new translators, Doyle said.