The industry’s press for AM revitalization continues at the commission.
Specifically, the broadcast trade lobby is impressing upon the Media Bureau the need for an AM-only window for owners to apply for an FM translator.
Such a window is “widely supported and would be a huge victory for diversity,” according to an ex parte notice filed by NAB EVP/General Counsel Rick Kaplan.
He details a meeting held with Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Audio Division Chief Peter Doyle, among others in which Kaplan writes “it is well past time to act” on the proposal actually offered by the commission two years ago.
An exclusive AM-only window “would give AM broadcasters a critical option for obtaining a translator because it would prevent speculative applicants and reduce MX filings while not impeding future translator opportunities for other services. It was a good idea then, and given the economic trends and continued technological challenges of AM radio, an even better one today.”
Indeed, those thoughts were echoed recently in RBR+TVBR’s interview with NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith.
