Unanimous Approval Expected for LPTV NPRM

An FCC draft NPRM proposing a host of changes to the low-power TV rules is expected to be approved unanimously at the commissioners' open meeting Thursday with few alterations from the draft version, agency and industry officials told us. LPTV broadcasters told us they view many of the proposals as ministerial “housekeeping,” and the LPTV Broadcasters Association and the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance want the item to seek comment on easing restrictions on the relocation of LPTV stations. LPTVBA President Frank “SuperFrank” Copsidas said proposals to impose filing requirements on LPTV stations similar to the rules for full-power stations are unfair because LPTV is a secondary service. “If the FCC wants to treat us like full-power stations, give us their protections,” Copsidas said.

The draft NPRM proposes numerous changes to the LPTV rules, including requirements to have communities of license, stricter rules for their call letters, and notification rules for stations shifting to serve as TV translators. The main proposal emphasized in the draft would require either top-four network-affiliated LPTV stations or LPTV stations that are among the top-rated four TV stations in their markets to maintain online public files. That's expected to primarily affect Gray Television, but the company isn’t expected to push back much, broadcasters told us. Gray and other larger broadcasters that own LPTV stations with top-four affiliates generally also own full-power stations and can comply with online public file and other such requirements, a broadcast executive at a company that owns LPTV stations told us. The eventual requirement should be based on affiliation rather than ratings, because many LPTV broadcasters don't subscribe to Nielsen, the broadcaster said.

Copsidas and several smaller low-power broadcasters told us an online public file requirement would be burdensome for smaller operations. Companies like Gray have compliance staff, Copsidas said, but “who’s going to do this?” at most smaller LPTV stations. “Extending the requirement to all LPTV stations would cause an excessive burden and would require additional FCC resources to administer with little to no benefit,” said Rick Kurkjian, CMC Broadcasting president, in an ex parte filing.

LPTV broadcasters seem primarily focused on using the proceeding to loosen the FCC’s limits on LPTV station location. Rather than the current 30-mile limit on an application for a single minor change, the agency should consider them case by case, ATBA Executive Director Lee Miller said in an interview. “There needs to be some tweaking,” he said. The draft doesn’t currently seek comment on extending the limit but proposes changing the way the limit is calculated and new language specifying that the limit is precisely 48.3 kilometers. The FCC “has never articulated a policy or technical rationale for the current limitation,” an LPTVA filing said. “As a low power station, dealing with interference is expected, but it may also be rectified by the ability to move the tower site,” Ritchie Broadcasting CEO Steven Ritchie said. “Sometimes that tower site may be more than 30 miles.”

ATBA and LPTVBA also want the FCC to seek comment on current power restrictions on LPTV stations. “These power limits were adopted in the analog era and have not been reevaluated to account for digital operations,” LPTVBA said.

Proposals in the draft item to formalize the process for assigning LPTV stations communities of license (COL) should be reconsidered, said Miller. The FCC “should consider whether stations in these services should have a community of license at all,” he said in ATBA’s filing. The agency wants to formalize the COL process to prevent rules abuses, the draft item said. The proposals would “ensure that Class A and LPTV/TV translator stations continue to utilize their COL to create a connection with the communities they in fact serve,” the draft NPRM said. Additional COL rules would create a greater burden for broadcasters and the commission, Miller said. LPTV stations already have "a difficult road," Kurkjian wrote. “Easing these requirements will assist underserved communities to continue to enjoy free over the air television programming.”