January 2013

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune demonstrates that the FCC’s Equal Opportunities requirements, as embodied in Section 315 of the Communications Act, apply to candidates for state and local elective office as well as to those for Federal office. We have written before about this obligation of stations to provide Equal Opportunities (sometimes referred to as “Equal Time“) to all competing candidates for the same office, yet many stations seem to be confused about their obligations as they apply to state and local political races – such as a race for mayor. While the reasonable access provisions of the FCC rules (which we summarized here), require that stations must make available time to Federal candidates (and Federal candidates only) if they request advertising time for their campaigns, if stations voluntarily make time available to a state or local candidate, then equal opportunities apply to all of the competing candidates in that same state or local race. In the case written about in the Tribune, a former Chicago Bear, an on-air host of a sports program, was forced off the air when he decided to run for mayor of a Chicago suburb and his opponent indicated that he would seek equal time from the station if the candidate continued to do his program.

This case also demonstrates several other aspects of the political rules. First, the local election is not until April, yet the station recognized that the equal opportunities rule kicks in as soon as you have a legally qualified candidate – one who has filed the necessary paperwork to run for an office. The application of the equal opportunities rule is not limited to the 45 days before a primary or the 60 days before a general election (those windows apply only to the application of the lowest unit charges that have to be made available to candidates – state and local as well as Federal candidates). See our summary of the lowest unit charge obligations here.  Once a candidate is qualified, even outside of the “political window”, equal opportunities apply.Continue Reading Sportscaster Running for Mayor In Chicago Suburb Taken Off the Air – Illustrating that the Equal Opportunities Rule Applies to State and Local Candidates

As we wrote last month, the FCC has issued an order attempting to resolve the remaining issues between FM translators from the 2003 FM translator window, whose processing has been frozen for over 5 years, and LPFM stations. As part of the Commission’s order, it decided that translator applicants would be limited to 3 applications in any "Appendix A market" – essentially the Top 150 Arbitron markets and a handful of other markets with high numbers of translator applicants – and 70 applications nationwide, of which at least 20 must be outside of the Appendix A markets. To move the processing of these applications forward, so that the FCC can get to its goal of clearing out the translator applications so that it can open a window for the filing of new LPFM applications in October, the FCC announced in a Public Notice released just before Christmas that translator applicants with applications pending that would be in excess of either the in-market cap of 3 application or the national cap of 70 applications, need to make elections as to which applications they will pursue during a window from January 10 through January 25. If only it were so simple.

The election is not a simple one – as it goes far beyond simply submitting a list of applications that an applicant seeks to prosecute. Instead, the applicant must meet the other criteria set out by the FCC in its order last month, and information demonstrating such compliance. For applicants seeking to prosecute more than 50 applications, or more than one application in any market, the applicant must show that each of the applications they are pursuing do not have 60 dbu overlap with any other application that they are pursuing, or with any translator authorization that they currently hold. For applicants seeking to prosecute more than 50 translator application (with those applications in excess of 50 having to be outside of the Appendix A markets), the applicant must also show that, at the transmitter site that they propose, there will be an opportunity at their proposed site for at least one LPFM station to operate on another frequency in the upcoming LPFM window. For those seeking to prosecute more than one application in an Appendix A market, the applicant must show that any additional applications will not preclude the use of LPFM opportunities identified through the use of the "grids" that the Commission adopted for measuring LPFM opportunities in their March order on this issue. These are not easy showings to make, so applicants looking to take advantage of these relaxations in the application caps need to get started on their engineering reviews immediately.Continue Reading Processing of 2003 FM Translators Continues – January 25 Deadline to Select Applications to Meet Application Caps