Federal Register: FCC (Broadcasting)

The Commission has before it a petition for rulemaking filed by Multimedia Holdings Corporation (Multimedia), licensee of KARE, channel 11, Minneapolis, Minnesota, requesting the substitution of channel 31 for channel 11 at Minneapolis in the DTV Table of Allotments. The Commission instituted a freeze on the acceptance of rulemaking petitions by full power television stations requesting channel substitutions in May 2011, and Multimedia asks that the Commission waive the freeze to permit KARE to change from a VHF to a UHF channel to better serve its over-the-air viewers. Multimedia states that the Commission has recognized that VHF channels have certain propagation characteristics which may cause reception issues for some viewers. While Multimedia acknowledges that VHF reception issues are not universal, it states that since the 2009 digital transition, when it began operating exclusively on digital channel 11, KARE has received a steady stream of complaints from viewers unable to receive the station's over-the-air signal, despite being able to receive signals from other local stations. Multimedia believes that waiver of the channel substitution freeze would serve the public interest.

In this document, the Commission eliminates the radio duplication rule, which restricts the duplication of programming on commonly owned stations operating in the same geographic area, for both AM and FM stations to reflect technological and marketplace changes since the current version of the rule was adopted in 1992. This approach will strike an appropriate balance between fostering our public interest goals of promoting competition and diversity and affording broadcast radio licensees greater flexibility to address issues of local concern in a timely fashion, facilitate digital broadcasting by AM stations, and ultimately allow stations to improve service to their communities.

In this document, the Office of Managing Director of the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) adopts an Order that amends the Commission's rules to reflect the upcoming new address of the Commission's headquarters, 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. It also makes changes to clarify that certain documents are now available for inspection through the Commission's website, removes references to a Commission copy contractor, and performs minor formatting corrections.

This document denies an Application for Review filed by PMCM TV, LLC (PMCM) of the Media Bureau's grant of a rulemaking petition filed by Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Inc. (CPBI), licensee of noncommercial educational television station WEDW, Bridgeport, Connecticut, to change WEDW's community of license from Bridgeport to Stamford, Connecticut. The document finds that the Bureau's reallotment was proper.

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) announces that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved, for a period of three years, the information collection requirements associated with the Uniform License Renewal, Discontinuance of Operation, and Geographic Partitioning and Spectrum Disaggregation Rules and Policies for Certain Wireless Radio Services Second Report and Order and the Report and Order on the Commission's Rules to Facilitate the Use of Vehicular Repeater Units. This document is consistent with the Second Report and Order, Report and Order, all of which stated that the Commission would publish a document in the Federal Register announcing OMB approval and the effective date of the information collection requirements.

In this Report and Order, the Commission repeals two rules regarding access to FM and TV broadcast antenna sites. These rules prohibit the grant or renewal of an FM or TV broadcast license to any person who owns, leases, or controls a particular site which is peculiarly suitable for such broadcasting in a particular area, if: The site is not available for use by other such licensees, no other comparable site is available in the area, and the exclusive use of the site would unduly limit the number of such stations that can be licensed or unduly restrict competition among those stations. After review of the record, the Commission concludes that these rules no longer serve any practical purpose in light of the significant broadcast infrastructure development since the rules were first adopted 75 years ago. Therefore, the Commission determines that it is in the public interest to eliminate them.

In this document, the Commission eliminates the Engineering Division of the Media Bureau and folds it into the Bureau's Industry Analysis Division. We take this step to account for changes in the Engineering Division's duties and in the organizational structure of the Commission. Incorporating the work and staff of the Engineering Division into the Industry Analysis Division is meant to ensure that the Bureau's technical expertise is integrated more fully into the Bureau's adjudicatory matters and policy proceedings. The intended effect of this action is to streamline the Media Bureau's operations by simplifying its organizational structure, reduce management redundancies by improving the supervisor-to-employee ratio, and encourage more interaction and collaboration within the Bureau.

Petitions for Reconsideration have been filed in the Commission's proceeding by Foundation for a Beautiful Life; and by Todd Urick and Paul Bame (previously commenting under ``LPFM/NCE Community- Radio Engineer Advocates'' or ``LPFM Advocates''), along with Peter Gray (KFZR-LP), Makeda Dread Cheatom (KVIB-LP), Brad Johnson (KGIG-LP), David Stepanyuk (KIEV-LP), and Andy Hansen-Smith (KCFZ-LP).

This document amends the FM Table of Allotments, of the Commission's rules, by reinstating certain vacant FM allotments. These FM allotments are considered vacant because of the cancellation of the associated authorizations and licenses, or the dismissal of long-form auction applications. Theses vacant FM allotments have previously undergone notice and comment rule making. Reinstatement of the vacant allotments is merely a ministerial action to effectuate licensing procedures. Therefore, we find for good cause that further notice and comment are unnecessary.

In this document, the Commission resolves the pending issues in this proceeding that authorized broadcasters to use ATSC 3.0, the ``Next Generation'' broadcast television (Next Gen TV) transmission standard. First, the FCC addresses the three issues raised in the Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that was issued in conjunction with the Next Gen TV Report and Order. Specifically, we provide additional guidance to broadcasters deploying Next Gen TV that wish to receive a waiver of our local simulcasting rules, decline to permit at this time the use of vacant broadcast channels for purposes of Next Gen TV deployment, and clarify the ``significantly viewed'' status of Next Gen TV stations. Second, we dismiss and, on alternative and independent grounds, deny the two petitions for reconsideration of the Next Gen TV Report and Order.

In this document, the Commission removes regulatory uncertainty that could hinder the development of the new, innovative uses of broadcast spectrum that the ATSC 3.0 standard enables. Specifically, we clarify that long-standing television station ownership restrictions do not apply to the lease of spectrum to provide Broadcast internet services. By taking this step today, we help ensure that market forces, and not television station ownership rules that were written for different services, are brought to bear on and determine the success of the nascent Broadcast internet segment. This step will also help ensure that broadcasters and other innovators have the flexibility to generate the scale--both locally and nationally-- that may be necessary to support certain Broadcast internet services without being subject to regulations unrelated to the provision of such services. A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking relating to the broadcast ancillary and supplementary service rules is published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register.

In this document, the Commission seeks comment on the extent to which we should clarify or modify our existing rules in order to further promote the deployment by television broadcasters of new, innovative ancillary and supplementary services, which we refer to as ``Broadcast Internet,'' as part of the transition to ATSC 3.0. We first seek comment generally on potential uses of the new technological capability from ATSC 3.0 and any existing regulatory barriers to deployment. We then consider specifically whether any changes or clarifications are needed to the ancillary and supplementary service fee rules and the rules defining derogation of service and analogous services. A Declaratory Ruling relating to the broadcast ancillary and supplementary service rules is published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register.

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announces that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has approved non-substantive and non-material changes to the information collections associated with certain rule amendments adopted in the Report and Order, FCC 20-8, MB Docket Nos. 19-165, 17-105 (Report and Order), to modernize certain notice requirements for cable operators and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers. The Commission also announces that compliance with the revised rules is required. This document is consistent with Electronic Delivery of Notices to Broadcast Television Stations, published March 20, 2020, which stated that the Commission would publish a document in the Federal Register announcing the compliance date for the revised rules listed in the DATES section below.

In this document the Commission adopts changes to its rules and procedures for broadcast station applicants to provide public notice of application filings to the principal area that is served or to be served by the station. The changes are designed to improve, streamline, and standardize the notices, including replacing notice by newspaper with online notice. The changes are further designed to enhance rule compliance and public participation in the application process, increase public access to filed applications, and reduce applicant burdens.

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) adopts a Report and Order (Order) to improve technical rules that primarily affect Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations.

In this document, the Commission seeks comment on whether to modify the Commission's rules governing the use of distributed transmission system (DTS) technologies by broadcast television stations. Specifically, the Commission seek comment on amending section 73.626 of its rules to permit, within certain limits, DTS signals to spill over beyond a station's authorized service area by more than the ``minimal amount'' currently allowed; how DTS signals extending beyond their current service areas should be treated for interference purposes if such spillover is allowed; potential impacts to other spectrum users, such as TV translators and LPTV stations, including whether there are alternatives to the proposed rule changes that could accomplish the intended objectives; whether to modify the DTS rules as they relate to Class A and LPTV licensees; and whether and to what extent the proposed changes are also appropriate for stations broadcasting in ATSC 1.0.

A Petition for Reconsideration (Petition) has been filed in the Commission's proceeding by Michael Couzens and Alan Korn, on behalf of Discount Legal.

This document summarizes the public notice that announces the indefinite postponement of Auction 106, an auction of construction permits in the FM broadcast service, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this document, the Commission makes non-substantive, editorial revisions to the Commission's rules to eliminate regulations that have become unnecessary because they no longer have any applicability. These relevant provisions are now without legal effect and therefore obsolete due to the completion of the transition from local hard copy public inspection files to online public inspection files.

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) amends its rules related to the two methods that may be used for determining and achieving compliance with the Commission's existing limits on human exposure to radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields: Exemption--consideration of whether a particular device or deployment is so clearly compliant, based on criteria in the Commission's rules, that it qualifies as exempt from the requirement to undertake a more thorough RF exposure analysis--and evaluation--a more specific examination of an individual site or device, which considers factors beyond those utilized for exemption and may be performed with a variety of computational and/or measurement methodologies. It also amends the rules related to an increasingly important part of demonstrating and maintaining RF exposure compliance: mitigation--the restriction from or limitation of RF exposure in controlled areas to keep RF exposure within the Commission's established limits by, for example, using signs or barriers. The amended rules are intended to provide more efficient, practical, and consistent RF exposure evaluation procedures and mitigation measures to help ensure compliance with the existing RF exposure limits. The amended rules replace the various inconsistent service-specific criteria for exempting parties from performing an evaluation to demonstrate compliance with the RF exposure limits with new, streamlined criteria. The amended rules also allow the use of any valid computational method to determine potential RF exposure levels, remove the minimum evaluation distance requirement for frequencies above 6 GHz, and establish post-evaluation RF exposure mitigation procedures (e.g., signage), to help ensure that persons are not exposed to RF emissions in excess of the existing limits. The Commission also affirms its prior decision to classify the pinna (outer ear) as an extremity in RF exposure compliance testing, finds no appropriate basis for and thus declines to propose amendments to existing RF exposure limits at this time, and terminates the inquiry in which it sought comment on the Commission's existing guidelines for limiting RF exposure to humans.