Heeding the comments of dozens of non-profit broadcasting advocates, the Federal Communications Commission has set a limit of ten applications per group for the upcoming non-commercial, educational (NCE) radio license application window, set to start on Friday.

"Our examination of the record confirms our concern that failure to establish a limit on the number of NCE FM applications that a party may file in the window would lead to a large number of speculative filings, creating the potential for extraordinary procedural delays," the FCC ruled today.

After the years of waiting, the FCC will begin accepting competitive applications for hundreds of medium range to big signal educational FM licenses available across the country. The filing period begins on Friday and concludes at the end of the following Friday, October 19th.

"It's now or never," the Web site of one group that helps organizations with the application process warns, since the window is probably the last shot that non-profits looking for a full power station will get in years.

The FCC's cap is now set. If the Commission's Media Bureau determines that an applicant has "an attributable interest" in more then ten NCE applications, the agency will consider only the first ten and dismiss the rest.

While most advocacy groups called for a ten station limit in the FCC's recent proceeding on this issue, National Public Radio asked for a slightly higher ceiling, as did Minnesota Public Radio. Filers connected to religious broadcasters called for a cap of from thirty to forty applications.

The Educational Media Foundation (EMF), which oversees Christian networks like K-Love and Air 1 Radio, asked the Commission not to set any limit on educational license requests. EMF contended that the complexity of the process would discourage speculators, an argument the FCC called "unpersuasive" in today's Notice.

"The vast majority of commenters support our proposal to impose a limit of ten applications," the FCC declared, adding that the limit was needed to fulfill "localism and diversity" goals for educational radio licensees.

Today's Notice also declines to exempt applications to upgrade translator stations from the cap, ruling that such an exception also "would undermine the application limit and the policy goals that are the basis for the limit."