FCC Should Lower Proposed FM Translator Complaint Minimums, NAB Says
The FCC's draft order on FM translator interference could make it “extremely challenging” for large market stations to collect the required number of listener complaints to lodge a valid interference complaint, NAB said in meetings last week with aides to…
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all five FCC commissioners and Media Bureau staff, per a filing posted Friday in docket 18-119. “Very few listeners are motivated to register a complaint about radio interference,” NAB said. Beasley, iHeartMedia and other broadcasters registered similar concerns last week (see 1905010162). The agency should return to the tentative conclusion proposed in the preceding NPRM that a minimum of six complaints would be sufficient, NAB said: If the FCC keeps the population-based complaint minimum, the number should be capped at 25 complaints. Radio executives Bayard Walters of the Cromwell Group and Ed Henson of Henson Media supported the population-based minimums in their own meetings with eighth-floor aides and Media Bureau staff last week, said a filing. “It made sense for the number of required complaints to be significantly different for Campbellsville, Kentucky, and New York City.” They also backed a 48 dBu contour instead of the proposed 45 dBu one, and eliminating the draft order's waiver for interference complaints outside the contour.