Telecommunications Act of 1996; Broadcast License Terms

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

47 CFR Parts 73 and 74

[MM Docket No. 96-90, FCC 96-169]

Telecommunications Act of 1996; Broadcast License Terms

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Proposed rule.

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SUMMARY: We issue this Notice of Proposed Rule Making (``NPRM'') to

implement Section 203 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (``Telecom

Act'') (Broadcast License Terms). Section 203 eliminates the statutory

distinction between the maximum allowable license terms for television

stations and radio stations, and provides that such licenses may be for

terms ``not to exceed 8 years.'' Amendment of the Commission's Rules is

necessary to conform them to Section 203 of the Telecom Act. We seek

comment on our proposal to amend our rules to extend broadcast license

terms to 8 years, as well as on our proposal for implementing this

change within the framework of existing license renewal cycles.

DATES: Comments are due on or before May 20, 1996, and reply comments

are due on or before June 4, 1996. Written comments by the public on

the proposed and/or modified information collections are due on or

before May 20, 1996.

ADDRESSES: Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C. 20554.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Somers (202-418-2130), Mass

Media Bureau.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a synopsis of the Notice of Proposed

Rule Making in MM Docket No. 96-90, FCC 96-169, adopted April 11, 1996

and released April 12, 1996. The complete text of this Notice of

Proposed Rule Making is available for inspection and copying during

normal business hours in the FCC Reference Center (Room 239), 1919 M

Street NW., Washington, D.C., and also may be purchased from the

Commission's copy contractor, International Transcription Service,

(202) 857-3800, 2100 M Street, N.W., Suite 140, Washington, DC 20037.

Synopsis of Notice of Proposed Rule Making Extending License Terms for

Broadcast Facilities

1. Section 307(c) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47

U.S.C. Sec. 307(c), authorizes the Commission to establish the period

or periods for which licenses shall be granted or renewed. Prior to the

enactment of the Telecom Act, Section 307(c) provided that the licenses

of television stations, including low power TV stations, could be

issued for a term of no longer than 5 years. It further provided that

license terms for radio stations, including auxiliary facilities, could

be for a period not to exceed 7 years. These were the maximum allowable

license terms and the Commission had the discretion to grant or renew a

broadcast license for a shorter period if the public interest,

convenience, and necessity would be served by such action. Consistent

with these statutory provisions, Section 73.1020 of the Commission's

Rules currently states that ``[r]adio broadcasting stations will

ordinarily be renewed for 7 years and TV broadcast stations will be

renewed for 5 years. However, if the FCC finds that the public

interest, convenience and necessity will be served thereby, it may

issue either an initial license or a renewal thereof for a lesser

term.'' Section 73.1020 also sets forth a renewal schedule for

broadcast stations based on the geographical region of the country in

which each station is located.

2. Section 203 of the Telecom Act amends Section 307(c) of the

Communications Act to read as follows:

Each license granted for the operation of a broadcasting station

shall be for a term of not to exceed 8 years. Upon application

therefor, a renewal of such license may be granted from time to time

for a term of not to exceed 8 years from the date of expiration of

the preceding license, if the Commission finds that public interest,

convenience, and necessity would be served thereby. Consistent with

the foregoing provisions of this subsection, the Commission may by

rule prescribe the period or periods for which licenses shall be

granted and renewed for particular classes of stations, but the

Commission may not adopt or follow any rule which would preclude it,

in any case involving a station of a particular class, from granting

or renewing a license for a shorter period than that prescribed for

stations of such class if, in its judgment, the public interest,

convenience, or necessity would be served by such action.

3. Length of License Terms. Although the language of Section 203 of

the Telecom Act lengthens the maximum permissible broadcast license

term to 8 years for both television and radio stations, the statute

does not require the Commission to extend license terms to 8 years as a

matter of course. The statutory language provides that licenses are to

have terms ``not to exceed 8 years'' and expressly states that the

Commission ``may'' grant renewals for terms not to exceed 8 years if

the public interest would be served thereby. Moreover, the language

indicates that the Commission may, by rule, adopt different license

terms for different classes of stations. Given this discretion under

the statute regarding how we might amend our rules, we believe it is

appropriate to determine through notice and comment rulemaking the

proper length of broadcast license terms as a general matter.

4. For several reasons, we propose to amend our Rules to provide

that broadcast licenses ordinarily have the maximum 8-year term

authorized under the statute. First, the practice of ordinarily

granting television and radio licenses for the maximum terms will

reduce the burden to broadcasters of seeking the periodic renewal of

their licenses and the associated burdens on the Commission. Second, it

is consistent with past Commission practice; our

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current rules provide for the maximum license terms in accordance with

previous statutory maximum terms of 5 years for television stations and

7 years for radio stations. Finally, this approach is consistent with

the legislative history of the Telecom Act. While the statutory

language provides the Commission discretion in this area, the

Conference Report indicates that Congress intended the Commission to

adopt the maximum term, stating that Section 203 of the Telecom Act

``extends the license term for broadcast licenses to eight years for

both television and radio.''

5. We seek comment on this proposal to amend Sections 73.1020 and

74.15 of our Rules to provide that the Commission will ordinarily grant

licenses for the 8-year terms allowed by Section 203 of the Telecom

Act. Irrespective of what the Commission ultimately determines to be an

appropriate standard license term, we note that Section 203 of the

Telecom Act explicitly reserves the Commission's authority to grant

individual licenses for less than the statutory maximum if the public

interest, convenience, and necessity would be served by such action.

6. Classes of Stations. Section 203 of the Telecom Act states in

part:

``the Commission may by rule prescribe the period or periods for which

licenses shall be granted and renewed for particular classes of

stations. * * *'' While this provision provides us authority to

designate different license terms for particular classes of stations

(provided that they do not exceed 8 years), we propose to treat all but

experimental broadcast stations uniformly.

7. With respect to television and radio stations the statute

eliminates the current distinction between these services for purposes

of establishing the maximum allowable license terms. In this regard,

the legislative history states: ``By applying a uniform license term *

* * for all broadcast station licenses, the Committee simply recognizes

that there is no reason for longer radio license terms than for

television licenses. The Committee intends that applying a uniform

license term * * * for radio and television licenses will enable the

Commission to operate more efficiently in the awarding of new or

renewed licenses for all broadcast licenses.'' H.R. Rep. No. 104-204,

Section 304, 104th Cong., 1st Sess. 122 (1995).

8. Similarly, we propose to track the approach we take with full-

service stations and adopt an 8-year license term for FM and TV

translator facilities and low power TV stations, as well as for

international broadcasting stations. This approach is consistent with

our previous decision to treat these different classes of stations

uniformly. See Report and Order in MM Docket No. 92-168, 59 FR 63049,

December 7, 1994. We further propose to continue our practice, set

forth in Sections 74.15(b) and (c) of our Rules, of tying the license

terms for auxiliary and booster facilities to the license terms of the

broadcast stations with which they are associated. We seek comment on

these proposals.

9. Finally, we propose to continue our practice, set forth in

Section 74.15(a) of our Rules, of issuing licenses for experimental

broadcast stations for a term of 1 year. We believe that a longer

license term would not be warranted for this class of station and seek

comment on this proposal.

10. Implementation of Amended License Term Provisions. Section 203

of the Telecom Act and the legislative history are silent as to whether

existing broadcast station licenses may be modified immediately to

conform to any new license terms that may be adopted.

11. The implementation issue is important because of the logistics

involved in renewing broadcast licenses. Under Sections 73.1020 and

74.15 of the Commission's Rules, all of the licenses for a particular

class of broadcast stations expire at fixed intervals over a 3-year

period. To stagger the processing of renewal applications and thus

perform this task more efficiently, the country is divided into 18

different regions containing 1 or more states for purposes of

establishing synchronized schedules for radio and television license

renewals. The radio renewal schedule and the television renewal

schedule operate on separate and distinct cycles that do not run

concurrently. Accordingly, once all radio licenses have been renewed as

scheduled, there is a 50-month hiatus before the radio renewal cycle

begins again. Similarly, once all television licenses have been renewed

as scheduled, there is also a 26-month hiatus before the television

renewal cycle begins again.

12. Because of the cyclical nature of this process, any change in

the length of the license term implemented in the middle of a renewal

cycle could adversely affect the synchronization of the whole process.

13. By the time the Telecom Act of 1996 was enacted in February

1996, the renewal cycle had already begun for radio stations in several

regions of the country. The practical effect of this situation is that

radio licenses that have already been renewed for the current maximum

allowable 7-year term will have shorter terms than radio licenses

renewed later in the renewal cycle, if we adopt the 8-year term we now

propose. When these previously granted licenses expire the radio

renewal process will no longer be synchronized. We wish to maintain the

efficiencies inherent in the existing synchronized schedule of renewal

cycles. Should we ultimately adopt an 8-year license term, we therefore

propose to implement it as follows. For broadcast renewal applications

that are granted after the effective date of a decision in this

proceeding, we propose to ordinarily grant the renewed license for the

maximum proposed term of 8 years. For renewal applications that have

been filed as part of the current renewal cycle (i.e., the cycle

beginning October 1, 1995 for radio stations) and that have been

granted only the maximum 7-year license term provided under our current

rules because they were processed prior to a decision in this

proceeding, we propose to extend by rule the already renewed 7-year

license term for such stations to the proposed 8-year term. These

licenses will thus be modified by rule to have the new maximum term and

will come up for renewal in synchronization with future radio renewal

cycles. The Commission adopted a similar approach in 1983 when it

extended existing common carrier and satellite licenses from 5 to 10

years. As noted in that decision, the Commission's authority to modify

the provisions of existing licenses by rulemaking has been upheld on

several occasions. This type of approach is also consistent with the

discretion we are given by the Telecom Act to prescribe rules governing

the period or periods for which licenses are granted for particular

classes of stations. We solicit comment on this proposed approach for

implementing the new maximum broadcast license terms authorized by the

Telecom Act.

14. By this Notice of Proposed Rule Making we request comments on

how to best implement the provisions of Section 203 of the Telecom Act.

Specifically, we seek comment on whether we should amend Sections

73.1020, 73.733, and 74.15 of the Commission's Rules to provide that

broadcast licenses ordinarily should have 8-year terms, the maximum

provided under the Telecom Act. We also seek comment on the treatment

of different classes of broadcast stations and how best to implement

the transition to any amended license term in an equitable manner given

that the renewal cycle has already begun.

15. This action is taken pursuant to authority found in Sections

4(i), 303(r), and 307(c) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended,

47 U.S.C. 154(i),

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303(r), and 307(c), and Sections 0.204(b), 0.283 and 1.45 of the

Commission's Rules, 47 CFR 0.204(b), 0.283 and 1.45.

List of Subjects

47 CFR Part 73

Radio broadcasting, Television broadcasting.

47 CFR Part 74

Radio broadcasting, Television broadcasting.

Federal Communications Commission.

William F. Caton,

Acting Secretary.

[FR Doc. 96-10051 Filed 4-22-96; 8:45 am]

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