LPTV Broadcasters Don't Want Online Public File Obligations

Though the FCC’s June NPRM proposed extending OPIF rules only to highly rated or top-four affiliate LPTV stations, virtually every commenter in the docket opposed extending them to any LPTV station. The same commenters also largely rejected FCC proposals that clarify restrictions on LPTV relocation, stiffen requirements on call signs and communities of license, and make it harder for LPTV stations to switch from serving as translators. “If the intended outcome is to do away with LPTV entirely, burying it in a cascade of paperwork, filing obligations, restrictions, and scrutiny of non-germane details would be an effective approach,” said NRB.

Several commenters attacked the FCC’s reasoning for extending political file and other obligations to LPTV stations: some have large audiences, network affiliations, and large broadcasters own them. The FCC’s “fundamental premise” that LPTV is “thriving” is incorrect, the LPTV Broadcasters Association said. “The service over the past decade has struggled to survive against the same challenges encountered by full-power television -- most importantly declining advertising revenues in the era of Big Tech,” the association said. The FCC’s records show that the 2,451 LPTV stations in 2010 are just 1,829 in 2024, the LPTVBA said. The broadcast industry’s current difficulties mean this isn’t the time to alter the FCC’s longstanding policy of minimal regulation for LPTV, the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance said. NRB said, “This NPRM indicates an outlook of ‘managed decline’ rather than optimism for the future.”

Requiring LPTV stations to maintain online public files would be burdensome and result in few public benefits, virtually all the docket's commenters said. “Many small LPTV stations have fewer than five employees,” Engle Broadcasting, licensee of WSJT-LD Atlantic City, New Jersey, said. “Maintaining an online public information file is a significant paperwork burden requiring many man hours for record keeping and filing.” NAB and the LPTVBA said they filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the FCC seeking current statistics for how often the public accesses OPIF files. NAB said a 2022 FOIA request showed “0.60 percent of the estimated U.S. population viewed broadcast stations’ online public files.”

If the public isn’t accessing OPIF files to participate in license renewal hearings, “the rule’s impact on the public is about the same as a tree falling in the forest: The only party there to hear the thud is the broadcast station who must file in its OPIF,” NAB said. “In the more than 40-year history of the LPTV service, the [National Television Association] is unaware of viewer complaints or significant interest in a public file in communities typically served by LPTV stations,” the National Television Association said.

The FCC’s proposal to extend the OPIF requirements to LPTV stations isn’t explicitly backed up by statute, ATBA said. The provisions of the Communications Act the NPRM cites “simply provide the Commission with certain general authority and fail to speak directly to the issue at hand,” it said. That is a significant issue in view of the U.S. Supreme Court’s removal of Chevron deference in the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision, ATBA said. However, ATBA said it wasn’t objecting to the FCC proposal to apply OPIF rules to top-four network-affiliated stations. Gray Television, which owns several top-four network affiliate LPTV stations, said the FCC should do so “only on LPTV stations that are the exclusive home to a Top Four Network in their designated market area.” NAB said that FCC proposals that peg the OPIF requirement to station ratings would be unworkable and that the FCC’s proposal would inadvertently loop in the LPTV repeaters of large full-power top-four stations. Low-power FM entity REC Networks said the FCC proposal would set a “dangerous” precedent, because it would be the first time such obligations were applied to a secondary service. REC said it is “deeply concerned” that an OPIF requirement for a limited subset of LPTV stations, would “pave the way” for expansion to more LPTV stations or to other secondary services like LPFM.

LPTV groups and the NRB also took issue with proposals to maintain limits on LPTV station relocation. LPTV stations need flexibility to survive, ATBA said. ”The existing limits are unnecessarily restrictive and should be loosened,” it added. “Each licensee has an incentive to construct facilities in the location that will allow it to best serve viewers,” ATBA said. “And if that results in the station shifting service away from an area, another station can fill the void, thereby preventing any harm.” There is, the LPTVBA said, “simply no record supporting a 30-mile distance limitation on station modifications." Added NRB, “LPTV operators making a good-faith effort to play by the rules should not be pushed out of business by the 30-mile maximum relocation distance.”

Several groups also pointed to the need for flexibility in their opposition to an FCC proposal making it harder for stations to switch to and from serving as translators. “The FCC assumes in its NPRM that broadcasters mainly exercise the flexibility of switching between translator and LPTV status to dodge regulatory obligations,” said NRB. “LPTV stations can better serve their audience by retaining the ability to shift between LPTV and translator status freely based on opportunities in the television marketplace and programming availability. NRB and ATBA also both said that proposals to require additional political ad recordkeeping shouldn’t apply to stations that don’t sell political advertising.

Instead of tightening community of license (COL) rules for LPTV stations, the FCC should eliminate them, ATBA urged. The FCC’s proposal “assumes, without discussion, that LPTV stations should have a community of license in the first place. In practice, the COL requirement merely imposes a regulatory burden on LPTV stations with no corresponding purpose or benefit,” ATBA said. The NPRM proposes limiting stations’ community of license based on the nearest jurisdictional boundary that overlaps its service contour, but that proposal doesn’t acknowledge rural areas where there might not be a boundary or many miles, said REC Networks. “This will only confuse and mislead viewers more than just allowing these stations to provide information that [more closely] relates to the area that they serve.”