Program Originating FM Broadcast Booster Stations

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 11, 73, and 74</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MB Docket No. 20-401; FCC 24-35; FR ID 213398]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Program Originating FM Broadcast Booster Stations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In a Report and Order, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) finds that allowing FM booster stations to originate content on a limited basis would serve the public interest. The Report and Order adopts rules to allow for the voluntary implementation of program originating FM booster stations, subject to future adoption of processing, licensing, and service rules proposed concurrently in a further notice of proposed rulemaking, published elsewhere in this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The rule changes in this document are needed to expand the potential uses of FM booster stations, which currently may not originate programming. The intended effect is to allow radio broadcasters to provide more relevant localized programming and information to different zones within their service areas. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> May 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Albert Shuldiner, Chief, Media Bureau, Audio Division, (202) 418-2721, <E T="03">Albert.Shuldiner@fcc.gov;</E> Irene Bleiweiss, Attorney, Media Bureau, Audio Division, (202) 418-2785, <E T="03">Irene.Bleiweiss@fcc.gov.</E> For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) information collection requirements contained in this document, contact Cathy Williams at (202) 418-2918, <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Report and Order (R&O), MB Docket No. 20-401; FCC 24-35, adopted on March 27, 2024, and released on April 2, 2024. The full text of this document will be available via the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS), <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/.</E> Documents will be available electronically in ASCII, Microsoft Word, and/or Adobe Acrobat. Alternative formats are available for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), by sending an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or calling the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). The Commission published the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) at 86 FR 1909 on January 11, 2021. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis</HD> This document does not contain new or modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burdens for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Congressional Review Act</HD> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that these rules are non-major under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of the R&O to Congress and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. <E T="03">Introduction.</E> In the R&O, the Commission expands the potential uses of FM boosters, which are low power, secondary stations that operate in the FM broadcast band. As a secondary service, FM booster stations are not permitted to cause adjacent-channel interference to other primary services or previously-authorized secondary stations. They must operate on the same frequency as the primary station, and have been limited to rebroadcasting the primary station's signal in its entirety ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> no transmission of original content). Historically, the sole use of FM boosters has been to improve signal strength of primary FM stations in areas where reception is poor due to terrain or distance from the transmitter. The R&O amends the Commission's rules to allow FM and low power FM (LPFM) broadcasters to employ FM booster stations to originate programming for up to three minutes per hour. This represents a change from current requirements of 47 CFR 74.1201(f) and 74.1231 which, respectively, define FM booster stations as not altering the signal they receive from their primary FM station and prohibit FM boosters from making independent transmissions. 2. GeoBroadcast Solutions, LLC (GBS), the proponent of the rule changes, has developed technology designed to allow licensees of primary FM and LPFM broadcast stations to “geo-target” a portion of their programming by using FM boosters to originate different content for different parts of their service areas. Prior to proposing rule changes, GBS tested its technology under different conditions in three radio markets and concluded that the technology could be deployed for limited periods of time within the primary station's protected service contour without causing any adjacent-channel interference, and that any resulting co-channel interference (self-interference to the licensee's own signal) would be manageable and not detrimental to listeners. GBS filed a Petition for Rulemaking (Petition) seeking to allow FM boosters to originate programming. The Petition suggested that geo-targeted broadcasting can deliver significant value to broadcasters, advertisers, and listeners in distinct communities by broadcasting more relevant localized information and advancing diversity. Stations might, for example, air hyper-local news and weather reports most relevant to a particular community. Stations also might air advertisements or underwriting acknowledgements from businesses that are only interested in reaching small geographic areas, thereby enhancing the stations' ability to compete for local support. GBS pointed out that many other types of media, such as online content providers, cable companies, and newspapers are able to differentiate their content geographically, but that no such option has existed for radio broadcasting. On April 2, 2020, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau issued a public notice seeking comment on the Petition. The Petition garnered significant public participation. 3. The Commission released a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on December 1, 2020, FCC 20-166, to seek comment on the GBS proposal and published a <E T="04">Federal Register</E> summary on January 11, 2021, 86 FR 1909. The NPRM posed questions to determine whether—and if so, how—to change FM booster station rules to permit FM boosters to transmit original geo-targeted content. It asked whether booster program origination may result in self-interference that would be disruptive to listeners and whether there are alternatives to GBS's proposal. The NPRM also invited comment on whether to require programming originated by the FM booster station to be “substantially similar” to the primary station's programming, as GBS had proposed, and how to define that term. Additionally, the NPRM sought comment on the potential impact of GBS's proposal on primary station broadcasts, the Emergency Alert System (EAS), and digital HD Radio broadcasts. Finally, the NPRM asked commenters to address the potential public interest implications of geo-targeted content on localism, diversity, and competition in the media marketplace. GBS clarified in its comments that it was proposing that boosters be allowed to originate programming for up to three minutes per hour. 4. After the comment period closed, the Commission granted GBS's request for experimental authority to conduct additional tests and required GBS to report the results. The reports contained detailed information about the technology's operation in two additional radio markets, its compatibility with the EAS, and potential impact on digital FM broadcasts. Because this information was not available to the public during the NPRM comment cycle, the Commission issued a public notice on April 18, 2022, DA 22-429, opening the record for additional comments. 5. <E T="03">Discussion.</E> The issues raised in this proceeding fall into three broad categories: (1) non-technical matters such as the advantages and disadvantages of program originating boosters from an economic and public interest perspective; (2) technical issues such as whether program originating boosters, if properly engineered, would cause harmful interference to their primary station or adjacent channel stations; and (3) administrative matters the Commission would need to address in order to authorize program originating boosters and respond to any resulting operational issues. The R&O resolves the first two categories by determining that program originating boosters limited to originating programming for three minutes per hour would serve the public interest and that concerns about the technology's impact on advertising revenue of other broadcasters and harmful interference are speculative. The R&O also concludes that properly engineered program originating boosters will not cause interference to the primary station or adjacent channel stations. Any interference concerns that arise in individual circumstances can be addressed by the Bureau through conditions imposed as part of the authorization process. Thus, the R&O, the Commission finds that it is in the public interest to allow FM and low power FM (LPFM) broadcasters to use FM booster stations to provide booster-originated content on a voluntary, limited basis, subject to certain restrictions described i ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 57k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━