There are a host of details AM owners need to know about the FCC’s upcoming FM translator auction.
The commission decided to open this one-time window for AM owners to apply for and receive authorizations for one FM translator per AM station for re-broadcast purposes; It did this in lieu of an auction, thinking this would provide AM owners faster relief given the agency’s other current commitments.
The application window opens Jan. 29, and how you apply can determine whether you’re in — or out.
This will be the one-time window in which AM station owners can apply to acquire and move an FM translator up to 250-miles in one fell swoop to an available commercial channel. In theory, the window will make obtaining such a translator faster than going through a window for new translators.
But there’s a catch. How you file makes a big difference.
For one thing, agency officials tell attorneys the application review process will be “frontloaded.” That means applications will be accepted on a “first-come, first-served” basis Womble Carlyle attorney Gregg Skall tells RBR+TVBR in an interview.
“Applications will be day sensitive rather than time sensitive,” he says, meaning if you file an application on one day for a translator, someone who files the next day for a translator that that would be mutually exclusive, is out of luck.
However, to application to mutually exclusive applications filed the same day with them be permitted to come to a settlement to resolve the mutual exclusivity.
The first window is open to Class C and D AM owners and closes July 28; the second window, for Class As and Bs opens July 29.
