Two FCC releases caught our eye recently:  As a part of the Commission's 2010 Quadrennial Media Ownership proceeding (MB Docket No. 09-182), the FCC Commissioned multiple studies to evaluate the industry.  As those reports trickle in, they appear tucked away on the FCC's website at:  http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/2010-media-ownership-studies

One report that caught our eye, which is worth further reading, is a study entitled "Less of the Same: The Lack of Local News on the Internet" by Matthew Hindman.  Hindman's report reinforces what have sensed all along aboat internet news:  "New, Web-native news organizations are nearly absent from this traffic data. Local news on the Web is fundamentally about consuming less news from the same old sources. Understanding the local news landscape online has profound implications for policymakers, journalists, and local self-governance in the 21st century."

Another report released by the FCC delved into the media landscape in the broadband age, entitled the "Information Needs of Communities".  The report was mainly 478 pages assessing a current state of media and the demands of future informational requirements of communities.  Unfortunately, the paper fails to recommend any realistic solutions that could be assisted by the FCC.  Essentially, we are witnessing a marketplace failure of journalism and broadcast localism, and the proposed solution was to leave it up to the marketplace.  The report suggested reducing the requirements of broadcasters and ditching the FCC broadcast localism inquiry.  As for solutions to the reduction of local news, nonprofit journalism could pick up the slack, but the report magically calls upon foundations and citizens to denote money to pay for it.  The recommendations seemed to resonate from the opinions of the report working group members themselves.  Radio Phoenix/Arizona Community Media Foundation states:

"The working group was chaired by Steven Waldman, senior advisor to the FCC Chairman.  Mr. Waldman is the co-founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet.com, a leading religious website that was acquired by the Fox Network Group.  He has been a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and NationalReviewOnline.  Elizabeth Andrion, General Manager of the Working Group, had been Vice President of Legal Affairs for Fox Television Stations.  The 24 members of the working group also included the Executive Editor of Beliefnet.com (Elizabeth Sams) and one representative of NPR (Cynthia Kennard).  There were no representatives of independent community radio broadcasting in the working group or serving as advisors or researchers."

FCC Commissioner Copps offered a criticism of the report in his comment.

Ofcom, the entity in charge of licensing radio channels in the UK, released a timetable for accepting applications for new Community Radio facilities.  The first round of licensing is from April 1, 2011 to July 21, 2011 where applicants in Southwest England and Wales are open to apply.  An expected timetable for licensing in various areas of the country are outlined in Ofcom statment Community radio: third round of licensing.

Earlier this month the FCC released Second Report and Order, First Order on Reconsideration, and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding rural radio service which tightens up on channel allotment procedures.  The primary goal of the R&O seemed to be to discourage migration of rural stations into urban stations by tweaking coverage and community of license modification regulations.  In addition, the FCC gives further stipulations for translators switching between non-commercial to commercial bands, and changes for Tribal Priority (which was touched upon by the FCC last year).

Recent sales of prominent freeform college radio stations KTRU (Houston) and KUSF (San Francisco) have sparked a debate regarding what can be done to save these community institutions.  Ken Freedman, Station Manager of WFMU, Kenya Lewis, Organizer of Save KUSF, Joey Yang, Station Manager of KTRU Rice Radio, Susan Harmon, Managing Director of Public Radio Capital, and Dorothy Kidd, Professor at University of San Francisco convene on a panel at SXSW to discuss the issue.

Audio Link (cleanest)
Video Link

FCC announced that it will be auctioning 147 FM channels starting March 20, 2011.  A copy of the proceding and public notice is available here.  A list of the channels available by community of license is available here.

On September 17, the FCC released a Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making requesting comment regarding a hard and fast date for low power analog TV and translators (LPTV) to covert to digital.  The Commission required all full power television stations to convert to digital by June 12, 2009, but the no deadline has been prescribed for LPTV facilities.  With this FNPRM the Commission is recommending a conversion date as soon at 2012.  To some licensees, this date may seem too premature.  One needs to take into consideration that there are several times as many LPTV facilities than full power facilities; equipment manufacturers and consultants are a finite resource.  The conversion will also require upfront capital for equipment upgrades.  Then take into acc

In a rare instance of unity, religious broadcast network Educational Media Foundation (EMF) and grassroots radio advocate Prometheus Radio Project have found common ground regarding the future of Low Power FM (LPFM) and translators.  Over the past decade, Prometheus and EMF, the owner of the nationwide KLOVE/AIR 1 FM network, have held opposing views regarding the remaining available radio spectrum. Now for the first time, the organizations have come together on a mutually beneficial policy proposal, submitted to the FCC as a Memorandum of Agreement. 

Click here to read more.

A mere month after the FCC's last decision concerning a batch of pending FCC applications, the Commission released another batch of 28 decisions regarding tentative selectees for new non-commercial radio facilities. 

FCC 10-142 August 3, 2010
Comparative Consideration of 26 Groups of Mutually Exclusive Applications for Permits to Construct New or Modified Noncommercial Educational FM Stations filed in the October 2007 Filing Window

The July 26, 2010 filing commencement for LPTV. which was originally scheduled to open January 25, 2010, has been postponed until further notice by the FCC.  The Media Bureau believe this delay "is necessary in light of the release of the National Broadband Plan."  The National Broadband Plan prescribes reallocating 120 megahertz from the broadcast television bands to broadband.  Thousands of LPTV applicants would greatly complicate this reallocation scheme.  This may be good news for those who back reallocating channels 5 and 6 for radio use since the postponement has at least temporarily saved channels 5 and 6 from LPTV usage.  For more information, read the FCC Public Notice below.

Common Frequency provided a comment to the FCC concerning the FCC's inquiry into the Future of Media (GN Docket No 10-25).  It can be read here.

Common Frequency recently submitted a letter to the Commission concerning the upcoming LPTV filing commencement in July.  The letter addressed concerns of reallocation of UHF spectrum currently occupied by television channels, interference concerns from channel 6 to NCE licensees, and the pending Docket concerning the reallocation of channels 5 and 6 for radio usage.

See CF letter to FCC June 21, 2010

USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center just released a study March 11 entitled "LOCAL TV NEWS IN THE LOS ANGELES MEDIA MARKET: Are Stations Serving the Public Interest?" authored by Center Director Martin Kaplan, PhD and Seton Hall's Matthew Hale, PhD.  The findings of the report concluded what we already know--local news devotes a minuscle amount of time on issues that matter:  local government coverage, including, new ordinances, voting procedures, education, budget, etc.  In fact, hard stories about local government average to less than a half minute in a 30 minutes news broadca