Temporary Thaw For FCC TV Modification Applications

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The Media Bureau is temporarily lifting a freeze imposed on the filing and processing of full power and Class A station applications—a move that it says “will help ensure the utility of an upcoming application filing window for secondary stations displaced by the incentive auction repacking process.”


How so? The FCC bureau says this will reduce the likelihood that facility modifications awarded in that displacement window might shortly thereafter be displaced again by applications of priority stations.

The Media Bureau in April 2013 issued a public notice imposing limitations on the filing and processing of certain applications by full power and Class A television stations in light of the then-forthcoming broadcast incentive auction.

The freeze remains in effect.

Following the close of the Incentive Auction Second Filing Window, the Media Bureau will issue a public notice specifying a limited period during which the freeze will be lifted.

“The temporary lifting of the freeze aims to decrease the possibility that low power television, television translator, and analog-to-digital replacement translator stations that seek to modify facilities during the upcoming Special Displacement Window available to
LPTV/translator stations displaced by the incentive auction will subsequently be displaced again by full power stations that file applications after the freeze is lifted,” the Media Bureau noted.

The timing of the Special Displacement Window after the two filing windows—the second of which closes Nov. 2—will “ensure a stable database for eligible LPTV/translator stations to identify and apply for available channels.”

Sixty days prior to the opening of the Special Displacement Window, a public notice will provide data identifying locations and channels where LPTV/translator stations likely cannot propose displacement facilities because of the presence of other non-displaced LPTV/translator stations, full power and Class A television stations, and land mobile
operations.

“To create a stable database for stations filing in the Special Displacement Window, approximately 30 days before the release of the Displacement Public Notice we will issue a public notice freezing the filing of minor change applications by LPTV/translator stations,” the Media Bureau said.