When it comes to inaccurate technical data on an application for a new LPFM station, a typographical error is simply not a valid excuse.
The FCC reiterated its policy when evaluating appeals filed by three previously dismissed 2023 LPFM applicants.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) in Milwaukee, All Music Portland (AMP) in Portland, Ore., and Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) in Springfield, Ark., filed applications for review in response to previous FCC final orders on their pleadings to fix clerical errors in their initial filings.
UWM and AMP wished to update their transmitter coordinates, while CACHE sought to correct its desired broadcast frequency.
[Related: “No New LPFM for Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee”]
The FCC’s Media Bureau had dismissed their initial applications due to violations of the minimum distance separation requirements, which are designed to protect existing FM station allotments from interference.
Each of the three applicants pointed to past precedent and claimed the FCC’s policies toward LPFMs are “draconian” in nature. They asked for an opportunity to make corrections that they claim would have protected existing allotments — data, the applicants said, that already existed elsewhere within in the applications.
But the commission said that it has enough on its mind these days, particularly after granting over 760 applications from the more than 1,000 that were filed during the 2023 LPFM window.
“Efficiency in initial application processing of more than a thousand applications is paramount, and requiring staff to spend additional time to resolve inconsistencies in such applications resulting from errors made by applicants is not a good use of the commission’s limited resources,” the Media Bureau wrote.
Applicants cite “draconian” policies
Applicants for new LPFM stations in the 2023 window were required to meet the FCC’s minimum distance separation requirements, with “no opportunity to correct the deficiency” in an application that failed to meet those standards, according to the Media Bureau.
It relies on the data fields in the technical portion of a station’s application, which the FCC refers to as the “tech box.”
Each of the applicants submitted petitions for reconsideration in February 2024. After they were each denied, in May and June 2024, they each submitted applications for review (AFR) on the commission’s final decision.
The commission noted that each of the three AFRs were essentially the same in wording and structure.
The three applicants claimed that the public would be served by an opportunity to correct its clerical errors. The correct transmitter coordinates, in the case of UWM and AMP, and the correct frequency in the case of CACHE, were present elsewhere in their applications. Each applicant pointed to four cases that were allowed to correct technical data during the 2013 LPFM filing window.
[Related: “LPFM Hopeful Says a Typo Should Not Prevent a CP”]
“The draconian cost of simple errors on LPFM applications that they occasionally succumb to vastly limits the number of people that can be helped,” each of the applicants wrote in their respective applications for review.
Each of the applicants claimed that the dismissal of their applications without an opportunity to amend was contrary to the Administrative Procedure Act.
FCC upholds decision
In jointly addressing the contentions in the three applications for review, the Media Bureau said the applicants’ procedural concerns should have been raised from the onset. It said that such requests are not only untimely but “inconsistent” with the FCC’s policy of altering fundamental components in rulemaking proceedings, not in case adjudications.
(Read the FCC’s joint decision on the three applications for review.)
The commission reiterated that dismissed LPFM applicants are prohibited from filing amendments to correct violations for short spacing.
“The Bureau held that typographical error claims cannot be used to justify filing an otherwise prohibited amendment,” it wrote.
“While we recognize that hiring technical consultants or legal counsel creates added expense, applicants are ultimately responsible for complying with the rules, whether or not they are represented by counsel,” the Media Bureau concluded.
Each of three applications for review were dismissed.
Original petitions
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and All Music Portland each requested reinstatement of their applications to change the proposed station coordinates to match those listed in their separate second adjacent channel waiver requests.
UWM, which desired to broadcast on 90.1 FM, would have been short-spaced to same-channel WMBI(FM) in Chicago, and second-adjacent 90.5 WMTH(FM) in Park Ridge, Ill.
Benjamin Evans filed an informal objection to UWM’s application for review, the commission noted, which was dismissed as moot.
All Music Portland, desired to broadcast on 98.3 FM and would have been short-spaced to 98.3 KFFD(LP) in Beaverton, and to second-adjacents 97.9 KLVP(FM) in Aloha, Ore., and 98.7 KUPL(FM) in Portland.
Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange, meanwhile, requested reinstatement so it could change its proposed frequency, which it had listed in the tech box as 106.9 FM, to 107.5 FM. The organization listed both 106.9 and 107.5 in its second adjacent channel waiver request form, the commission said.
CACHE would have been short-spaced to first-adjacent 107.1 KTHS(FM) in Berryville, Ark., with its 106.9 application, and short-spaced to second-adjacent 106.5 KBVA(FM) in Bella Vista, Ark.
Comment on this or any article. Email [email protected].
