Online construction permits

These days you can order an automobile on line, choosing colors, options and delivery date. Ditto everything from travel to furniture to tango lessons. Why not FCC construction permits?

Right now, filing a form 301 for a minor change entails entering all the technical information using an online form. "Filing" requires the applying entity to have an account (FRN) and payment of a fee, usually by credit card. It is possible to pay by check but only at the applicant's peril, as sometimes check and application are not reconciled before the FCC purges the application for nonpayment.

Once the 301 application is received and the fee paid, the FCC puts the application on public notice by listing it in the daily "Broadcast Applications" list available on its website. Anyone with a comment on the merit (or lack thereof) is invited to be heard by the FCC. Most minor change applications receive no comment. On balance, most minor modifications represent changes that licensees are automatically entitled to, provided they are the first to file, and so comment for or against has little effect.

Following public comment, most applications enter a dormant period lasting about 90 to 120 days. Then the FCC applications staff examines the technicals and, provided there are no errors, grants the application. If there are errors, the applicant gets a so-called "30-day letter" listing the errors found by the staff and setting a time limit for filing a corrective amendment.

Since about 1980, the technical parameters of minor change applications have been prepared using computers. As we all know, broadcast software has become extremely sophisticated, multifunctional and easy to use. We at AMS hold licenses for almost every broadcast software package. As might be expected, they all produce nearly identical results. FM spacings almost always agree exactly, since the formula for computing distance is published in the FCC rules. Contour distances under FCC F[50,50] and F[50,10] vary slightly, owing to the coding required to implement the associated graphical curves in software. Some software draws 360 radials, some 72, some allows user selection. All packages work pretty much the same way, implementing the coverage and spacing models embedded in the FCC rules.

The FCC goes through much the same process in checking an application for grant. The same spacing and coverage parameters must be checked for accuracy and compliance. Tower coordinates must be cross-checked, since the FCC uses NAD27 datum and the FAA uses NAD83/WGS84. All this FCC checking involves human applications processors. This is unacceptably wasteful. We believe the majority of 301 applications could be handled by an automated "back end" of the present online application process.

Such an automated real-time checking function would give an applicant immediate feedback as to whether the application is grantable or not. Technicals which conflict with an existing license or prior-filed application, fail to cover the community, etc. would simply result in an on-screen error message. Applicants would be presented with the choice of correcting, seeking a waiver or quitting. A completed application, free of errors, might be granted instantly subject to finality following the mandated public notice period.

Requesting a waiver would put the application into the manual checking queue to be processed the old fashioned way, with the attendant delays. Thus licensees would be rewarded for filing applications that comply with the rules. Follow the published rules and you get an instant CP. Ask for special treatment and you go to the back of the line.

Some rules, like ownership, might be a bit complicated to implement in software. An interim solution might be to automatically mail notice of any application to all the other stations within the associated Arbitron Market, inviting comment as to violation of the ownership limits. In non-Arbitron markets, mail to every station within a given radius, perhaps within the predicted interference-free contour. Market competitive forces can be harnessed in this way to ensure compliance. Automatic mailing is cheap, easy and relieble.

Ultimately, every attributable ownership in a broadcast property and the associated individual should be indexed along the lines of the present FRN system, thus allowing an automated vetting of ownership compliance. Right now, the FCC mostly relies on self-policing of ownership, accepting as honest whatever map and list the applicant provides. Falsification risks getting you stuck to a lack-of-candor tar baby, so deliberate misrepresentation is rare anyway.

If as many as half of the routine, rules compliant applications out of the manual vetting process, the waiting time for non-routine applications is sure to fall. By creating an incentive to file a routine application, some applicants will choose that route where they might not have otherwise. Peter Moncure, author of the RadioSoft package, believes an application process back-end can added to the FCC's online filing system. FM, because of the straightforward technicals, would be easier and might be the best place to start. But I can see no reason such a system wouldn't be possible for AM and TV as well.

Frank McCoy
Executive Vice President, Engineering
American Media Services, LLC