An organization seeking to build a low-power FM station in a suburb of Cincinnati has failed to convince the FCC to overturn its rejection.
Blueberry Radio, a non-profit organized last year, sought to broadcast on 105.5 FM from Liberty Township, Ohio, and filed an application during the 2023 LPFM window. It planned to offer educational programming including discussion groups, news talk shows, community forums and coverage of local council meetings, from a facility it would own and operate.
The Media Bureau dismissed the application in January, saying it would violate second-adjacent spacing requirements in respect to both 105.1 WUBE(FM), a Class B signal licensed to Cincinnati, and 105.9 WNKN(FM), a Class B licensed to Middletown. In the case of WNKN, the proposed Blueberry Radio signal would be just 8 miles away, well short of the commission’s spacing requirement of 42 miles.
The Local Community Radio Act does authorize the commission to waive second-adjacent spacing requirements if an applicant requests a waiver in its application and demonstrates that its facilities would not result in interference.
Blueberry Radio did not submit a waiver at first, but in late January it filed a petition to seek reinstatement of its application as well as a waiver of the second-adjacent requirement.
It blamed an oversight by its consulting engineer for not submitting a waiver in the initial application, and it argued that its signal would not cause interference, citing an engineering exhibit. Blueberry Radio also pointed out that its application was a singleton, not in competition with other applicants for this low-power FM facility.
But in an echo of how it recently handled a proposed LPFM in Pennsylvania, the commission now has upheld its decision.
It said it will only consider a petition that points to an error in its original judgement or facts not known at the time the application was filed.
The commission also said that being a singleton was not a justification for a waiver. And it said that permitting anyone to file requests to waive separation requirements after the close of the window and dismissal of an application would be “unfair to the many applicants who fully complied with the rules and filing requirements, and is therefore, contrary to the public interest.”
This is one of several recent cases in which applicants blamed an unsatisfactory outcome, at least in part, on filing errors by their engineers. But the commission repeatedly replied that “errors of technical assistants” are not an excuse for failure to adhere to the rules.
As a result, Blueberry Radio’s petition that the FCC reconsider its Liberty Township LPFM application has been denied. (Read the decision.)
