FCC Takes Wraps Off Revised Broadcast Renewal Form

With the first batch of the next round of broadcast renewals due by June 1, 2011 ­-- less than eight months from now ­-- the Federal Communications Commissionhas announced plans to tweak the renewal application form (FCC Form 303-S) in five discrete ways:

1. The revised form's instructions will include a new definition of "eligible entity" designed to reflect the FCC's "Equity Debt Plus" standard for determining the attributability of certain interests. The version of that standard currently in effect was announced in the FCC's Diversity Order adopted back in 2007.
2. Section II of Form 303-S will contain a required certification that the licensee's "advertising sales agreements do not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity and that all such agreements held by the licensee contain nondiscrimination clauses."
3. Section III of the form will include a new question (Item 4, with accompanying instructions) requiring the licensee to certify that, during the preceding license term, its station was neither silent, nor operating on less than the required minimum schedule, for any period of more than 30 days. If the licensee can't so certify, it will have to provide an exhibit specifying "the exact dates ... on which the station was silent or operating for less than its prescribed minimum hours."
4. The proposed revision of the form would eliminate the longstanding requirement that full power AM and FM licensees submit an exhibit to demonstrate compliance with RF limits.
5. Finally, Section V (Item 4) of the form would be changed to clarify that LPTV stations still need to file Form 396 with their renewal application, even though they might not have to file an EEO-related public file report and post that report to their website.