Form 177 Window Opens; FCC Walks Broadcasters Through It

Form 177 is an online form that populates itself with information based on the choices broadcasters or their attorneys make as it's filled out, said FCC staffers presenting at Tuesday’s workshop. A noncommercial educational station will be presented with different choices from a commercial Class A station, a characteristic that should make the important, multipage document easier to complete, several broadcast attorneys told us. Most of the actual inputting of information is likely to be done by attorneys rather than broadcast licensees themselves because attorneys generally have ready access to the required information, they said.

Though some licensees participating in the auction may already be filling out the form, it's likely many broadcasters are still finalizing their auction plans and won’t begin filling out Form 177 until later, said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford. Stations giving up their spectrum and exiting the business are more likely to be ready sooner, while those planning to be involved in channel sharing may still be working out the particulars of their channel sharing agreements (CSAs), he said. “Nothing clarifies like a deadline,” he said. Broadcasters and attorneys filing the form should at least log in early in the window to get a feel for the form and input basic information in the system, said Epstein. “Preferably before Christmas,” he said.

While the window is open, Form 177 can be easily revised or changed, Griffin said. The form will inform users if it contains errors or is incomplete when they try to submit it, she said. After the window closes, FCC staff will review the applications that were submitted before the deadline, Griffith said. Broadcasters will receive a “first confidential status letter” letting them know if their application is incomplete, followed by a resubmission window to correct defects, she said. A second status letter will then be sent out letting broadcasters know if their applications are complete. Broadcasters whose forms are then incomplete won’t be participating in the auction, Griffith said. The FCC will then calculate an initial clearing target, and send out final status letters informing broadcasters with complete forms whether their stations are needed for the auction, Griffith said. Qualified broadcasters will then be able to participate in a mock auction before real bidding starts, she said.

Though broadcasters have until March 29 to decide whether they want to relinquish their spectrum or move to a VHF band, they can only choose among options they select on Form 177, Griffith said. A broadcaster that selects moving to another band on Form 177 and doesn’t select the option to go off-air can’t later decide to go off-air, she said. The relinquishment rules were a focus of audience questions at the workshop, along with the disclosure rules for participating broadcasters, which are different from those used for other FCC broadcast forms, said Media Bureau Associate Video Division Chief Dorann Bunkin. Parties holding 10 percent or more of the voting or nonvoting stock of applicants must be disclosed, Bunkin said. The threshold has long been used in wireless auctions, Oxenford said. There were also several questions about CSAs, which IATF Legal Adviser Mary Margaret Jackson said are the responsibility of the sharee -- the station selling its spectrum -- to upload with Form 177 rather than the responsibility of the host station, or sharer.

Though licensees can file their application any time within the window, the “quiet period” of prohibited communications among broadcasters doesn’t kick off until the application window closes Jan. 12, the IATF said. The quiet period will last until the FCC announces the results of the incentive auction, which Epstein said is expected to end in Q3 2016, though the auction could last longer if it stretches to multiple stages, he said.