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Original Minutes on FM Boosters

S

Santa fe

The FCC is opening comments on the proposal to allow FM boosters up to three minutes an hour of "original", not simulcast, programming.
Can't see this not being approved. Radio is trying to squeeze every dollar it can from every erg of RF they generate. This could do that in certain circumstances.
Might this be the opening move to eventually allow all FM translators to air original programs?
 
This is a political favor under a bogus claim that this will "help" minority and women owners. There are no plans to have FM translators originate program and something like that will be strongly opposed out of our shop and I am sure that the NAB would not like the idea. Geo-targeting (no more than 3 min/hour) is now permitted on boosters on an experimental basis. There is a proposed rulemaking to make it permanent. While REC does not oppose the 3-minute per hour separation of programming, we do oppose the potential uptick in boosters (what we call the "booster boom") with a lack of additional technical protections, especially considering that the overall technical rules for boosters has not been reexamined since the boom of FM translators as well as the LPFM service, which are both equal in status to FM boosters. We also disagree with the way the FCC handled compliance with the Local Community Radio Act by allowing a station to have an arbitrary 25 boosters.
 
The concerns of this advocacy group for LPFM broadcasters point to the blind eye the FCC is turning toward increasing clutter on the FM band. The original FCC goals for LPFM seem at odds with their willingness to license translators, not just to give AM stations an FM presence, but to allow HD subchannels to move to mainstream FM and national networks to have signals in areas where they don't have full power affiliates.
The potential explosion of boosters, up tp 25 per station, could turn FM into an RF junkyard.
What is the FCC trying to do? Push us to a digital FM platform where, in theory, hundreds of signals could co-exist without problems? Or is that also unfeasible?
 
Auction 83 (the 2003 translator window) was seen by the FCC as a way to raise funds through auction. It turned out to be an out of control trainwreck, which in the end (15 years later), netted less than $1 million in auction revenue for the US Treasury.
 
I'm pretty well convinced that once broadcasters see how much a well-synchronized booster will cost them to implement, and they see how hard it will be to monetize them, we're not going to see very many of them taking advantage of this rulemaking.
 
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