This month, the long anticipated application window for Non-Commercial Educational (NCE) radio stations opened and closed. After years of waiting, the Federal Communications Commission let filers apply for these stations from Friday, October 12th through Friday the 19th. Scores of big signal non-commercial frequencies across the United States and its territories are up for grabs. But nobody knows yet precisely how many community, Native American, and religious groups submitted applications for these licenses during that brief period.

If anybody can make an educated guess, however, it's Libby Reinish, Full Power Coordinator for the Prometheus Radio Project. Prometheus helped hundreds of applicants make their way through the formidable process of identifying and filling out the FCC's complex forms for these precious FM signals. Now that the smoke has cleared, LLFCC caught up with Reinish to find out what happens next.

LLFCC: So how did the filing window go Libby? Smoothly? Were there problems?

Libby Reinish: For the applicants that we were working with, I think the filing window went pretty smoothly. Because everyone had to hire a lawyer and an engineer ahead of time, by the time the filing window rolled around most people were pretty much done with their application. On Friday [October 19th] the FCC decided to extend the window, which was supposed to close on Friday at midnight; they extended it to Monday at 2 pm. So that gave stragglers a couple of extra days to go over their applications one last time.

As tensions rise over a possible Federal Communications Commission decision on its media ownership rules, Clear Channel is back in the breach, calling again for the agency to drop its ceiling on radio station ownership in big local markets.

This time the media giant says the FCC's recently released studies on media trends confirm the need to abandon the cap.

The ten new studies "add to the already overwhelming record [of] evidence in this proceeding that the terrestrial radio industry is vibrantly competitive," Clear Channel writes. "Accordingly, the Commission should move forward promptly to repeal the local radio ownership rule in its entirety."

The company says it will settle, however, for a rise in the cap in big markets like New York and Los Angeles (seventy-five stations or more) to ten stations. The present limit is eight. Clear Channel also wants to be able to buy more stations in smaller markets.

Clear Channel Executive Vice President Andrew Levin wrote to the FCC on October 22nd, praising studies number five and ten in particular. The last concluded that "[c]onsolidation of radio ownership does not diminish the diversity of local format offerings," and that market demographics predict what formats radio stations will choose rather than ownership structure, according to the firm's filing.

Presidential hopeful and U.S. Senator Barack Obama has asked the Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin to rethink its proposed timeline for revising the agency's media ownership rules."

"According to press accounts, you intend to present specific changes to existing rules in November with a Commission vote on that proposal —whatever it may be—on December 18, 2007," Obama wrote to the Commission today. "I believe both the proposed timeline and process are irresponsible."

Last week The New York Times and Associated Press both ran stories suggesting that Martin wants to fast track a vote on the FCC's media ownership rules. Up for grabs are caps limiting how many newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations a single entity can own.

Martin has long favored relaxing restrictions that would prevent an entity from owning a newspaper and a TV station in the same city.

The AP article reported that Martin plans to propose new media ownership rules soon, likely at a hearing on October 31st. The public would be allowed to comment through mid-November and some of December. The Commission would vote on the proposal at a meeting on December 18th. The Commission would also hold its last hearing on its media ownership provisions in Seattle on November 2nd, according to the story.

Five prominent media reform organizations have taken Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin to task for suggesting that digital (DTV) television's draw will be the wide variety of new channels available to consumers.

"We write today to say that we believe that the quality of DTV programming, not quantity of DTV programming could be the key to a successful digital television transition," the groups told the FCC on Friday October 19th. They include the Benton Foundation, Common Cause, Communication Service for the Deaf, Free Press, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Martin spoke before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on October 17th on the analog to digital, or DTV, transition. All TV broadcasters must convert to digital transmission after February 17th, 2009, leaving an estimated 21 million American households with useless analog TV sets.

The FCC is leading a broad effort to educate the public on the need to convert to digital reception before 2/17/2009. Martin told the committee that the government should accentuate the positive.

"Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is doing a Michael Powell," AFL-CIO leader Paul Almeida wrote to his constituents last week, referring to Martin's predecessor at the FCC. "He’s trying to ram through new rules to give more billions to billionaires - people like Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell - at our expense."

"Please spread the alert to your members. Ask that they contact their Members of Congress," Almeida's message continued. "Tell Congress to keep the Bush FCC from allowing more media consolidation. Only if your members take action can we support local news and entertainment, a diversity of views, and media competition."

The alarm was triggered by an Associated Press news report released that day, October 18th. It said that Martin plans to release a plan soon to relax the FCC's many media ownership rules, among them restrictions on owning a newspaper and a TV station in the same market, or owning many radio stations and TV stations in the same market.

Since then, tempers have been rising in Washington, D.C. United States Senators Byron Dorgan and Trent Lott quickly dispatched a letter to Martin. "We strongly encourage you to slow down and proceed with caution," the statement said.

Using the same language template and writing on the same day, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Target have sent statements to the Federal Communications Commission assuring the agency that they're ready for the DTV transition.

The filings are not identical, but they're not all that different either.

"Best Buy will include educational items about the DTV Transition and the end of analog broadcasting in its in-store 'video loops' that are shown on the TVs displayed for sale," the big appliance retailer wrote to the FCC on October 16th.

"Circuit City will include items on the DTV Transition and the end of analog broadcasting in its in-store 'video loops' that are shown on the TVs displayed for sale," the electronics seller wrote to the FCC on the same day.

The government has designated February 17th, 2009 as the last day of analog broadcasting. After that, all TV stations must transmit digitally. Millions of Americans don't know about this transition, or that as many as 21 million households have older analog TV sets that won't work after February 17th. So the big retailers have pledged to participate in a general education campaign. Among their promises:

Adam Candeub

On Thursday, October 4th, the Federal Communications Commission's Office of Inspector General completed a detailed audit of "allegations that Senior Management Ordered Research Suppressed or Destroyed." The research in question consisted of two draft studies that came out the FCC's Media Bureau. One titled "Do Local Owners Deliver More Localism?" suggested that, in fact, locally owned TV stations indeed do produce more local news than non-locally owned broadcasters. The second, a "2003 Draft Radio report," noted that advertising market share among radio stations had become more concentrated immediately after the enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed corporations to own many more radio signals.

Yet the FCC released neither of these studies, at least not until United States Senator Barbara Boxer confronted FCC Chair Kevin Martin with the first report—"deep sixed," as she put it—during his 2006 reconfirmation hearing. The plot further thickened when Adam Candeub, a former Media Bureau staff attorney, told journalists that the Local TV news report "was stopped in its tracks because it was not the way the agency wanted to go"—that is, towards publishing evidence implying that retaining some of the FCC's media ownership caps might be prudent.