Unanimous Approval Expected for Permanent Radio Geotargeting Rules

The FCC’s draft order on creating a standardized process for authorizing content-originating FM boosters necessary for geotargeted radio ads is expected to be unanimously approved during the commissioners' Nov. 21 open meeting, industry and agency officials told us.

Though radio geotargeting faced pushback from NAB and large radio broadcasters prior to the agency’s initial order authorizing it in April, broadcasters appear to have abandoned that battle -- since July, geotargeting advocate GeoBroadcast Solutions was the only entity submitting ex parte filings in docket 20-401. The draft order “will enable FM content-originating boosters to be deployed on a predictable and permanent basis that will empower radio broadcasters to better serve their communities,” GBS said in an ex parte filing last week.

The draft order would create a permanent procedure for authorizing content-originating FM boosters. The April order that initially allowed stations to take advantage of FM geotargeting allowed boosters only under temporary experimental licenses. The draft order would retain a cap of 25 boosters per station established in the April order, though it leaves room for the Media Bureau to consider waivers of the cap. The draft also maintains the April order’s three-minute per hour limit on geotargeted content. In recent ex parte filings, GBS has pushed the agency to add language allowing for waivers of this limit as well “if a station can demonstrate that the public interest in its own local community would be advanced” by exceeding the limit and that it wouldn’t risk interference with other stations.

Broadcast industry officials told us that lobbying against radio geotargeting from larger broadcasters has largely dried up due to bipartisan support for geotargeted broadcasting from FCC Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Brendan Carr. Starks extolled the virtues of radio geotargeting as recently as last month in remarks before the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (see 2410110047). NABOB and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council have long supported radio geotargeting. Carr has also been a vocal proponent of geotargeting, and is widely expected to be the next FCC chair. Considering those factors, broadcasters likely don’t see continued lobbying against the rule change as a fruitful pursuit, broadcast attorneys told us.

The draft order would treat the content-originating boosters as individual facilities under the broadcast political advertising rules but allow broadcasters to file required documents using their main station’s online public file. The order would also alter the agency’s interference rules to include applications to construct FM booster stations among those subject to objections based on predicted interference to other stations. The item also creates notification requirements for broadcasters to communicate with other stations and some emergency alerting entities that they are using content-originating boosters.

In addition, the draft order would deny recon petitions against the April order from Press Communications and REC Networks. “We find that REC has not demonstrated any material error and that Press raises matters already considered and rejected,” it said. “Nor are there any new facts that would support our alteration of the framework established in the Order.”