FCC License Renewal and Your Station

By Allen Myers, IBS Vice President FCC & Member Relations

Beginning on December 1, 2011, license renewal applications for radio stations must be filed with the Commission. To renew your station’s license is as simple as going to the Commission’s website and filling out the renewal application – right? Well, not exactly. The Commission’s renewal process can be fraught with difficulty if licensees do not comply with all the steps in the process. So, lets get started and look at the problems you might encounter.

Perhaps the most common mistake a student-run station can make is to have a student to sign the renewal application. This application, like all Commission applications, must be signed by an officer or director of the licensee. However, if the governing body of your school has authorized someone to sign applications on its behalf, the renewal application should contain an attachment reflecting this authorization. An application with an incorrect signature must be amended and this will delay the Commission staff from granting your renewal.

Radio station licenses expire on different dates depending on the state in which the station is located. Applications for renewal of the station license are due 120 days before that date. A complete list of these dates is found on the FCC page of the IBS website. Please refer to it so that you know when you must file the renewal application for your station. For full-service FM stations, if your license renewal application is more than thirty days late-filed, you can expect the Commission to issue a fine of $1,500.00 to your licensee. If the renewal application is received after the license has expired, the fine is increased to $3,000.00. And if the station has continued to broadcast after the expiration of the license, an additional $4,000.00 is added. [For LPFM and FM translator stations, the fine for a late-filed application is $250.00 and additional $250.00 if the station continued to operate beyond the expiration of its license.] If your station finds itself in the last of these situations, you should immediately cease broadcasting and, simultaneously with your renewal application, submit a request for “Special Temporary Authorization” to resume broadcasting if you desire to continue broadcasting while the Commission acts on your station’s renewal. Do not resume broadcasting until the STA is granted.

At some point after your license has expired, if the Commission has not received a renewal application, the station license will be “cancelled.” This action will appear on a Commission Public Notice. If a licensee desires to seek reconsideration of this action, it must do so and submit a license renewal application within thirty days of the Public Notice announcing the license cancellation. The station may not resume broadcasting until the Commission reinstates the station license and grants the renewal application.

Applicants for renewal of license must complete pre-filing and post-filing announcements in accordance with Section 73.3580 of the Commission’s rules (see the rule for the content of these announcements). Pre-filing announcements begin six months prior to license expiration and are made on the 1^st and 16^th of each month until the renewal application is filed. Post-filing announcements follow the same schedule form when the application is filed and end on the 16^th of the month prior to license expiration [i.e. if your license expires on January 1, 2012, your last post-filing announcement will be made on the 16^th of December 2011. If your station is not on the air when an announcement is due to be aired – such as during summer vacation – the announcement should be placed in a newspaper. If you do not complete all of the announcements, you should make arrangements with the Commission staff for their completion. While you will not be fined for this, your renewal will be deferred until all the announcements are completed.

The final pitfall in the renewal process involves the station’s Public File as required by Section 73.3526 of the Commission’s rules – specifically the community issues and program list that all stations, other than Class D and LPFM stations, are required to place quarterly in the Public File. You are required to certify on the renewal application that this has been done. If you cannot make this certification, you are requested to explain the failure. There is no was to rectify this “sin of omission” with the Commission and you may expect to receive a fine for non-compliance. Treat it as a “teachable moment” and resolve to do better during the next renewal cycle.

As lengthy as this article is, I have not been able to cover every situation in which you may find yourself during the renewal process. Please feel free to contact me via the IBS website if you have questions.