On July 27, the FCC will conduct an auction of AM and FM broadcast construction permits.
What do individuals or groups seeking to participate need to know? Filing requirements, along with minimum opening bids, upfront payment information and other procedures are now known.
Oh, and the auction is comprised of more than 100 new FM CPs, and four AM stations serving the St. Louis market that replace a now-defunct quartet.
The finalization of competitive bidding procedures and minimum opening bid amounts is perhaps the biggest takeaway from the announcement of Auction 109 from the Media Bureau and the Office of Economics and Analytics.
Three parties submitted comments in response to a formal request for comment.
After review, the OEA and Media Bureau determined the following auction specifics:
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- The bidding methodology for Auction 109 will be a simultaneous multiple round format.[1] The Commission will conduct this auction over the Internet using the FCC auction bidding system. Qualified bidders are permitted to bid electronically via the Internet or by telephone using the telephonic bidding option. All telephone calls are recorded.
[1] See infra Section IV.A.1., “Simultaneous Multiple Round Auction”.
The pertinent auction dates and deadlines are as follows:
- Auction Tutorial Available (via Internet) — by April 14, 2021
- Short-Form Application (FCC Form 175) Filing Window Opens — April 28, 2021, Noon ET
- Short-Form Application (FCC Form 175) Filing Deadline — May 11, 2021, 6:00 p.m. ET
- Upfront Payments (via wire transfer) — June 16, 2021, 6:00 p.m. ET
- Mock Auction — July 23, 2021
- Auction Bidding Begins — July 27, 2021
Auction 109 will offer four AM construction permits and 136 FM construction permits in the AM and FM broadcast services.
The AMs? They are comprised of four previously licensed AM stations, which the Commission on March 20, 2020 deleted from existence.
Those stations were Entertainment Media Trust‘s KQQZ-AM 1190 in De Soto, Mo.; daytime-only WQQW-AM 1510 in Highland, Ill.; St. Louis-based KZQZ-AM 1230; and East St. Louis, Ill.-based KFTK-AM 1490.
What happened? The Commission discovered the four St. Louis-market AMs were actually controlled by an individual convicted of felony offenses for obstruction of justice and bank fraud — Bob Romanik — and not the individual listed in all FCC filings.
With all of that now in the past, the four AM facilities will be treated as existing “allotments.”
Then, there are the FMs.
The construction permits to be auctioned include all of the 130 FM permits that had previously been listed in the inventory for Auction 106, as well as six additional permits.
As the FCC explains, Auction 106 was postponed on March 25, 2020, with no appointed date for resumption, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was subsequently canceled. As such, there are six new facilities to consider.
One petitioner wanted 9 AM facilities it claimed were “abandoned” added to Auction 109. The response from the FCC? “In the interest of an effective and efficient auction process, we decline to enlarge the Auction 109 inventory by adding the AM facilities requested by WTRW.”
Another petitioner wanted 14 more FM allotments. But, it turns out 12 were added back to the FM Table of Allotments in July 2020 and one more was added in December. They will be considered for a future auction. The last allotment identified in the petitioner’s filing, Channel 241A at Visalia, Calif., has not yet been re-added to the FM Table of Allotments and “thus is not yet ripe for filing of applications.”
Details on applying for participation in the auction, preparing for bidding in Auction 109, bidding, post-auction procedures and procedural matters were outlined in a 76-page document, available for download here.
