3740 SW Comus Street
Portland, OR 97219
ph: 503-245-5756
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LICENSE RENEWAL
By Michael Couzens (June 24, 2020)
Summary of activities that must take place prior to the station's license expiration date:
The Federal Communications Commission does not send to a radio station any e-mail or a post card reminder to indicate that its license is coming up for renewal. Making matters worse, the license itself has but a single expiration date, but critical actions toward renewal must be taken in the four months prior to that date. This briefing sets forth chronologically the sequence of things that need to be done for a successful renewal.
The FCC’s website provides Radio, FM Translator & FM Booster broadcast station license expiration dates and renewal submission deadlines by date (and, for convenience of lookup, also by state - find your state's deadline at https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/broadcast-radio-license-renewal-dates-by-state).
The FCC, to conserve staff time, establishes deadlines by State, instead of receiving all renewal applications for processing in a single wave. In sequence, and with awareness of your state's deadline, the critical stages are these.
Pre-filing Broadcast Announcements Abolished; Filing Notice Expanded
Until just recently, renewal applicants were required to announce the filing of the renewal application, two months before the filing. In a new general re-write of the public notice requirements the Commission has abolished this notice1. Now the announcements follow the filing of the application – six of them, at least once per week, for four consecutive weeks. They need to start no later than five business days after public notice that the Commission has accepted the renewal application for filing2. A new script for the announcement was adopted, which includes a signpost link to the application in the FCC database:
To post:
On [DATE], [APPLICANT NAME], [PERMITTEE / LICENSEE] of [STATION CALL SIGN], [STATION FREQUENCY], [STATION COMMUNITY OF LICENSE OR, FOR INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST STATIONS, COMMUNITY WHERE THE STATION’S TRANSMISSION FACILITIES ARE LOCATED], filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for [TYPE OF APPLICATION]. Members of the public wishing to view this application or obtain information about how to file comments and petitions on the application can visit [INSERT HYPERLINK TO APPLICATION LINK IN APPLICANT’S ONLINE PUBLIC INSPECTION FILE (OPIF) OR, IF THE STATION HAS NO OPIF, TO APPLICATION LOCATION IN THE MEDIA BUREAU’S LICENSING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM; IF AN INTERNATIONAL BROADCAST STATION, TO APPLICATION LOCATION IN THE INTERNATIONAL BUREAU’S MYIBFS DATABASE].
1. Amendment of Section 73.3580 of the Commission's Rules Regarding Pubic Notice of the Filing of Applications, Second Report and Order in MB Docket No. 17-264, FCC 20-65 released on May 13, 2020 (the “Notice Modernization Action”).
2. The Commission also tweaked the timing requirements. All must go on between 7:00 a.m. And 11:00 p.m. local time, Section 73.3580(d) of the Rules.
In the Notice Modernization Action, the Commission got rid of notice publication in a local newspaper. Instead, renewal applicants and applicants for other significant changes will be required to put a notice on their home page, and keep it there for 30 days.
Noncommercial educational licensees always were exempt from the newspaper publication requirement, and in the new rules they are exempted from the new web page notification. The on-air announcements, and a hyperlink on the web page, are all that is required. If the station was silent when the on-air announcement otherwise would have been made, then and only then an on-line announcement must be given as a substitute. The Action (para. 45) also clarified that Low Power FM Stations have the same obligations as other NCE stations, so far as on-air announcements of renewals and other major applications.
On-line Public Information File.
By now, nearly all Noncommercial Educational FM stations have gotten used to the fact that they must create and maintain an FCC-hosted on-line public file. (FM Translators, boosters and LPFM stations are not required to maintain one3.) All stations that are required to have a public file needed to replace the old dead-tree manila folder with the on-line public file by June 24, 2018. A station required to have a public file must have one in order to secure a license renewal.
3. An LPFM, like any other originating station, must have a political file if the station is accepting and broadcasting political messages.
The existence of the on-line public file has transformed the practicalities of the station's FCC rule compliance. Officials in the FCC's Media Bureau and Enforcement Bureau, like anyone else, can see at a glance whether or not required reports have been made, and the exact times and dates of their uploading. Previously, at least some of this information would only have been accessible with travel to examine the paper file in the community of license.
A question in the renewal application asks, in Yea-or-Nay format:
On Line Public Inspection File: Licensee certifies that the documentation required by 47 C.F. R. Section 73.3526 or 73.3527, as applicable, has been uploaded to the station's public inspection file as and when required.4
4. It is Section 73.3527 of the Rules that includes the requirements for noncommercial stations. As discussed below the requirements include Ownership reports, Equal Employment Opportunity files, Issues/Programs lists, lists of donors supporting specific programs, and with respect to the renewals, certification of compliance with the local public-notice announcements.
So, this question asks whether required reports (1) were uploaded and (2) were uploaded when required. If the response, in either aspect, is not correct, any reviewer (and for that matter any member of the public) can discover that the response was incorrect, from the on-line public file. Because the on-line files are so new, hundreds and possibly thousands of licensees have not been so punctilious as to be able to claim full and timely compliance, without exceptions.
However, in the renewal application it is vital to answer this question truthfully, and to use an exhibit to set forth any and all deficiencies of reporting or timing. An untrue answer, even if it seems innocuous, could delay the grant of renewal or could trigger a fine.
Certification of Announcements. The Notice Modernization Action specified that a renewal applicant must upload a certification that it has broadcast the required broadcast notices after filing the application, giving the dates and times of broadcast. The certification needs to go into the on-line public file within seven days of the broadcast of the final required announcement.
Reports that Need to be Finished Prior to Submittal of the Renewal Application
LMS and CDBS. Past filings have been done in a system known as CDBS, using its own Account Number and Password. This system is in process of being replaced by the License and Management System, or LMS, which utilizes the licensee's unique FCC Federal Registration Number, or FRN, again with its own password. Required reports cannot be filed without a registered FRN, and the renewal itself will be made only in LMS, using the FRN and FRN password5. The renewal applicant should inventory required reports in its on-line public file, before attempting to fill out the renewal application.
5. The utility for establishing and modifying Commission FRN's is the following – https://www.fcc.gov/licensing-databases/commission-registration-system-fcc
Ownership Report. An ownership report, Form No. 323-E, is required every two years, on December 1 of odd numbered years, Sec. 73.3615(d) of the Rules. For 2019, a one-time only extension of the deadline was created through January 31, 2020. In the renewal application, the most recent ownership report must be certified to exist and to have been uploaded.
Equal Employment Opportunity Report. For a station with fewer than five full-time employees and no EEO complaints during the license term, the EEO form, Form No. 396, is simple and easily prepared. For the renewal application, the EEO report must be on file via LMS and the file number cross-referenced specifically in the renewal form.
A station is considered to have five or more full-time employees if the station, and not the entity of which the station is a part, has five or more permanent employees working more than 30 hours per week. As an example, KALX (FM-Ed.) in Berkeley, licensed to the Regents of the University of California, has one and a half full time employees. The ten-campus University of California governed by the regents has more than 227,000 faculty and staff. Only the short-form EEO report is required for KALX.
For those stations with five or more full-time employees, the more detailed report requires a narrative statement of how the station achieved broad and inclusive outreach during the two-year period prior to the filing of the report. This encompasses specific training practices on non-discrimination, recruitment requirements for every job vacancy, and community outreach initiatives. See NFCB Public Radio Legal Handbook (2017 electronic version) pp. 39-44. All these activities require documentation uploaded to the on-line public file.
Quarterly Issue and Program Lists. Each station is required to maintain a list of issues of interest and concern in the community, addressed by the station's programming during each quarter. Previously prepared on paper and deposited in the local public inspection file, these lists became a required upload with the advent of the on-line public file since June, 2018. The description to be provided includes time, date, duration and title of the program, and the issue(s) covered, per Section 73.3527a)(8) of the Rules.
After many years of deregulation, in which other records and reports have been phased out, the quarterly issue-program reports take on added significance as one of the last remaining affirmative obligations of a station licensee. At renewal it becomes important to have attended to these reports consistently over the license term.
THE RENEWAL APPLICATION
Provided attention has been given in advance to all the reports that needed to be included in the on-line public file, the renewal application form is not especially difficult or complicated. It is found in a pull-down menu under the “authorization” tab for the licensed facility, in LMS, https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/login.html.
A renewal application should be filed on time without fail. The processing of renewals depends crucially on timely compliance with deadlines. Petitions to deny can be entertained (only by electronic submission in LMS) no later than 30 days before the license expiration date. This schedule pre-supposes a timely renewal filing, 90 days before that.
An untimely renewal application is itself a rule violation. It certainly risks delay in having the renewal application considered by the staff – and granted. An informal objection to the renewal can be filed at any time prior to staff action on the renewal, so any delay of the grant extends the period in which the renewal is open to objections. No station should want to find itself hanging out in limbo, uncertain as to whether and when its renewal application will be granted.
If a renewal is delayed by the existence of a complaint or for any other reason, the license continues in effect and the station may continue to operate past the expiration date, until the matter is resolved one way or the other. The FCC is barred by the Statute from punishing a station for any conduct that took place previous to an unconditional renewal. For this reason, the staff tries to make sure that any important violation is fully adjudicated, before the renewal is granted.
Typically, an “enforcement hold” based on a complaint will not be disclosed to the renewal applicant. Instead, the renewal application will just sit there in limbo, without explanation. If your timely renewal application is not acted upon within 60 to 90 days of the petition-to-deny date, it is advisable to ask whether it is subject to an enforcement hold.
Recently the Enforcement Bureau published a guidance for renewal applicants who find themselves in this situation (DA 20-328, March 31, 2020). An e-mail address has been established to ask staff whether such a hold is in existence: holdsinfo@fcc.gov . Inquiries to that address should include the station Call Sign, Facility ID, community of license, service (AM, FM, LPFM) and complete contact info for who's asking (an officer or outside attorney).
The notice states that staff will try to respond within seven business days. With the existence of this contact link, the staff will no longer take questions about enforcement holds via other e-mail or by telephone.
Post-filing Announcement.
The old requirement of post-filing announcements in the three months after the renewal filing was replaced in the Notice Modernization Action. Now the requirement consists of the six broadcast announcements during the four weeks after the renewal application is accepted for filing, and nothing else.
Relationship Between Complaints and Renewals.
Some listener complaints are directed to the station. Or they may trigger investigation by the Enforcement Bureau. Either way, if known to the station, the contents of the complaint need to be uploaded to the on-line public file. Other complaints, however, may be directed to the Enforcement Bureau in confidence, and will not be known to the station at the time they are made.
Even if a complaint forms the basis for withholding action on the renewal, and an enforcement hold is discovered, the identity of the complainant typically is not disclosed. Obviously, upon learning of any complaint, the licensee needs to address the substance of it immediately, as best it can.
Commercial broadcasters pressed hard to extend the license term, from previous three years to the current eight-year term for all, commercial and non-commercial. While the saving in paperwork is obvious, the extended term creates more chance for a mis-step that could sit in the file for a protracted period, and only come to light during the renewal process. For this reason, it is good practice to think of the renewal as a stage that illuminates the entire eight-year term. Violations can and will occur in the most conscientious stations and in the normal course.
When, for example, indecency violations or underwriting rule violations transpire, the station should take prompt corrective action, and make a record of that corrective action. Good faith efforts will make it far more likely that the renewal process is merely a boring routine, and not a harrowing adventure over rocky shoals.
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NOTE: This briefing is intended as a service to community radio. It broadly identifies timing and issues in the renewal process. It is not formal legal advice. Send corrections or comments to cuz@well.com
Copyright 2009 Community Media Assistance Project. All rights reserved.
3740 SW Comus Street
Portland, OR 97219
ph: 503-245-5756
fax: 503-245-5773
info