FCC Radio Orders Would Revise Some Move-in Rules, Help Tribes Seek Allotments

A draft order on about a half-dozen petitions for reconsideration of March’s move-in order may not be voted on until next month or later, while the draft on tribal access to radio allotments may be approved in late December, FCC officials said. They said the tribal order was likely to be uncontroversial among commissioners, who would probably approve it. The move-in order, though on circulation, may be changed by FCC staff, who are in the process of giving public notice of the recon petitions, commission officials said. Such notice is needed before the item can be adopted, they said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the drafts.

Those who sought recon include the Educational Media Foundation (http://xrl.us/bmkmq7), Entravision and a group of radio companies including Radio One, according to filings in docket 09-52. “Entravision wishes to express its surprise that the Commission felt the need to undertake a wholesale revision of its policies dealing with proposals for new allotments and changes in communities of license,” that company said (http://xrl.us/bmkmq3). The move-in order was “a new policy which reverses nearly 30 years of case law and relies on assumptions and speculation rather than a factual record,” said a May filing from Radio One, the Minority Media and Telecom Council and several dozen others (http://xrl.us/bmkmrd).

The tribal order sets up a qualification process, a threshold where tribes with lands and those without can seek allotments by the FCC of unoccupied radio channels that haven’t already been set out for auction, agency officials said. The bureau’s draft is said to deem that a better way to let tribes get access to new stations, rather than giving them bidding credits as an earlier rulemaking notice had asked about. Even with credits, a tribal entity still could be outbid by a contender that’s not a tribe. The qualification process lets tribes in certain situations, based on the area to be served and the affected population of the tribe at issue, get the FCC to fast-track the allotment process, agency officials said. Native Public Media and the National Congress of American Indians, in one of just several comments on the further notice of proposed rulemaking, backed the qualification system (http://xrl.us/bmkmo5).

If no other tribe wants the same allotment, it could be awarded quickly, and the station allowed to be built, FCC officials said. They said that if two or more tribes want the same frequency in the same place, a settlement period would be held where the overlapping requests could be resolved. In such periods, often one party agrees to let the other pursue the allotment. If there’s still interest in mutually exclusive allocations by multiple tribes, agency officials said the stations would then be auctioned. The draft is said to encourage deals between various tribes during the settlement window.

About 8 percent of U.S. tribes have radio stations, most of which are noncommercial FMs, estimated CEO Loris Taylor of Native Public Media. Forty-eight of the 565 federally recognized tribes run terrestrial radio stations, so the FCC boost to American Indians is needed, she said. It would “broaden” opportunities “for tribal governments to obtain new and diverse technologies and platforms that serve underserved communities,” she said. That’s “a way for the federal government to help strengthen the robust and diverse communications that is really essential to the Indian community,” Taylor said. The commission’s forthcoming order, which she hasn’t seen or been briefed on, seems to be in line with efforts by the government and tribes to get them “adequate access to communications services,” Taylor said. “It’s also in line with the commission’s commitment to recognize the rights of tribal governments to set their own priorities.”