Broadcast Station Rule Updates

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 1, 73, 74, and 76</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MB Docket No. 24-626; FCC 24-126; FR ID 280968]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Broadcast Station Rule Updates</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) seeks comment on several proposed updates to broadcast radio and TV rules to better reflect current application processing requirements, clarify ambiguity, and remove references to outdated procedures and legacy filing systems. Such action ensures that the Commission's rules are accurate, reducing potential confusion among the public, applicants, licensees, and practitioners, and alleviating unnecessary burdens. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments due on or before April 23, 2025; reply comments due on or before May 8, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings, 63 FR 24121 (1998). You may submit comments, identified by MB Docket No. 24-626, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People With Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Ariane Rangel, Audio Division, Media Bureau at <E T="03">Ariane.Rangel@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-4036, or Lisa Scanlan, Audio Division, Media Bureau at <E T="03">Lisa.Scanlan@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-2704. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), in MB Docket No. 24-626; FCC 24-126, adopted December 11, 2024, and released December 13, 2024. The full text of this document is available by downloading the text from the Commission's website at: <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-126A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis:</E> This document contains possible new or modified information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we seek specific comment on how we might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, see 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this document will be available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. In the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) adopted on December 11, 2024, and released on December 13, 2024, the Commission seeks comment on proposed revisions to various broadcast radio and television regulations in parts 1, 73, 74 and 76 of the CFR. The NPRM proposes to update rules to better reflect current application processing requirements, clarify and harmonize provisions, and remove references to outdated procedures and legacy filing systems. The NPRM also proposes to clarify certain terms and procedures used in the comparative processes for mutually exclusive (MX) noncommercial educational (NCE) stations and low power FM (LPFM) stations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> 2. This NPRM continues our efforts to update broadcast radio and television rules. In the past three decades, the Media Bureau (Bureau) has transitioned from paper-filing to electronic filing, and subsequently transitioned from its initial filing database to a new one. Various rules still reference outdated terms from the Commission's paper-filing processing procedures and discontinued database, and are therefore incompatible with current electronic filing procedures. Additionally, other outdated rules are no longer necessary to ensure administrative efficiency and can result in application processing delays and confusion. This NPRM seeks to update and clarify these rules to better reflect current processing procedures, and improve how the public, applicants, and licensees engage with the Commission. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Replace References to CDBS With References to LMS</HD> 3. We propose to amend §§ 1.5000(b), 1.5004(d)(2), 1.30001(d), 1.30004(a), 73.202(a), 73.3700(b)(5)(iv), and 76.66(d)(2)(ii) to replace references to the Bureau's Consolidated Database System (CDBS) electronic filing system with references to the Bureau's new Licensing and Management System (LMS) electronic filing system. The Bureau is in the final stage of transitioning from CDBS to LMS. We propose to amend rule sections that mention CDBS to instead refer to LMS. We seek comment on this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Update Form Names</HD> 4. We propose to update §§ 73.30(c), 73.45(d)(1), 73.51(c), 73.311(a), 73.512(a), 73.625(c)(4)(i), 73.872(b)(1), 73.875, 73.1670(b), 73.1690(c)(9), 73.3580(d)(2), and 73.5002(b) to update application references. The rules we propose to amend reference outdated form designations used in CDBS, such as “FCC Form 301,” and we propose to update the references to conform to current conventions used in LMS such as “FCC Form 2100, Schedule 301.” For example, FCC Form 301 would become FCC Form 2100, Schedule 301. We seek comment on this proposal and whether other Rules need to be updated to conform to LMS naming conventions. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Change Table of Assignments/Allotments References To Conform to Existing Language</HD> 5. We propose to update inconsistent terminology concerning references to the tables governing FM and TV allotments. Sections 1.401, 1.403, 1.420 and 73.3573 currently use inconsistent terminology to refer to the “Table of FM Allotments” and the “Table of TV Allotments.” Accordingly, we propose to change references in these sections from “FM Table of Allotments” to “Table of FM Allotments” and from “TV Table of Allotments” to “Table of TV Allotments.” In addition, we propose to change references from “FM Table of Assignments” to “Table of FM Allotments” and from “TV Table of Assignments” to “Table of TV Allotments.” These proposed changes are editorial in nature and correspond with the standard language used in §§ 73.202, 73.606 and 73.622. We seek comment on this proposal and whether other Rules should be similarly revised. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Eliminate § 73.503(g), the 2021 NCE FM Window Application Cap</HD> 6. We propose to eliminate language concerning a cap on the number of applications each applicant could submit in the 2021 NCE FM filing window. Section 73.503(g) (Application Limit) mandates that an NCE FM applicant may file no more than a total of 10 applications in the 2021 NCE FM filing window. This Application Limit was intended for the limited purpose of the 2021 NCE FM filing window, which has passed. Upon resolution and finality of the remaining NCE FM applications, we propose to delegate authority to the Bureau to effectuate this change and remove § 73.503(g). We seek comment on this proposal. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Eliminate AM Station Power Increase Restrictions</HD> 7. We propose to eliminate the requirement that AM stations seeking power increases must request at least a 20% increase in nominal power. We tentatively conclude that this change will provide AM broadcasters greater flexibility and will afford new opportunities for stations to optimize their operations, thus providing continued AM service to the public. Due to increased efficiency in administrative processing, we do not expect this change will adversely affect the processing time for other pending applications. We also propose an update to our AM rules to conform to international agreements and several minor administrative changes. 8. Section 73.3571(e)(1) and (2) sets forth requirem ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 110k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━