AM Translator Window Gets Over 400 Applications on Day 1
The Media Bureau received over 400 applications from Class C and D AM stations looking to relocate FM translators Friday, FCC officials told us Monday. “Almost one in ten AM stations in the country applied for an FM translator during the first 24 hours of the modification window,” said Commissioner Ajit Pai in a statement announcing those numbers. As expected (see 1601120064), the first-come, first-served aspect of the window caused applications to be front-loaded. FCC officials told us they expect the torrent of applications to slow to a trickle during the rest of the window for C and D stations. Brokers, FCC officials and broadcast attorneys told us they expected some more surges of activity as windows for A and B stations to relocate stations and 2017 windows to obtain new stations approach. Yet neither is expected to match the volume of Friday.
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The possibility of skyrocketing prices caused some broadcast attorneys to initially oppose the translator relocation window when it was proposed. Brokers told us some prices have increased as the window approached. The highest-price translators in the lead-up to the window were in the Northeast, where there's a dearth of both existing FM translators and the spectrum space to use them, said media broker Gregory Guy of Patrick Communications. As AM stations seeking translators tried to close deals before the window opened Friday, translators there could run over $100,000, while in the relatively translator-packed and spectrum-rich western states, translators were available for $20,000-$30,000, Guy said.
The market didn’t drive prices astronomically high because of the large supply of translators available, said Bob Heymann, head of the Chicago office of broker Media Services Group. The FCC had a 2003 translator applications filing window that led to there being over a 1,000 translators, Heymann said. “There is a huge supply of these.” FCC officials told us they estimate that about 2,500 C and D AM stations might be in a situation to obtain a translator in the window, and they were encouraged to have so many apply so quickly.
The window for A and B AM stations that opens in six months won’t get as much activity because the C and D stations are expected to have taken up much of the available FM band spectrum for translators with their applications, Heymann said. But stations in the west, with several available FM frequencies, may be able to get a lower price for a translator by waiting till later in the window, when the market isn’t so competitive, said Womble Carlyle radio lawyer John Garziglia. Such a station may also be able to wait for the window to apply for new translators which will open in 2017, FCC officials told us.
Those stations that rushed to file on the first day are waiting to find out if their applications are “singletons” or mutually exclusive to another application, Garziglia said. That information was expected to start showing up on the FCC Consolidated Database System Monday, he said. Mutually exclusive or MX stations will have the opportunity to come to some sort of private arrangement. Applicants for the current window are barred from applying in either the subsequent AM-only window in six months and in the 2017 windows to obtain new translators, the officials said. That rule motivates stations to do their due diligence on applications and resolve MX conflicts, they us.