FCC Clarifies Policies On Community Of License Changes

Clarifies Policies On Community Of License Changes

The FCC has clarified some of its new policies regarding handling mutually exclusive proposals for new radio service and changes in community of license.

The changes were intended to change the trend of moving rural allocations to larger, more populous areas, and the clarifications mostly reiterated the reasons why the changes were put into place ("we do not believe that allowing such migration in all cases comports with our statutory duty under Section 307(b)."  In its discussion, the Commission agreed with RADIO ONE's contention that the use of ZIP codes as a determining factor whether a community is independent of an urbanized area "should be given little weight" considering the ubiquity of ZIP codes, and that rebuttal of the urbanized area service presumption (UASP) under the TUCK rule (the assumption that a station licensed to a community in an urbanized area will serve the whole market) will remain dependent on proposed coverage of the signal and size and proximity of the proposed community of license to the central city.

The Commission also changed certain procedures for determining gain and loss of population in a change of community of license, now using the transmitter coordinates for the current and proposed facilities rather than allotment coordinates.  The new procedure will also use calculations based on proposed power, HAAT, and actual terrain, rather than using maximum coverage for the proposed class.

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