The FCC is enacting a new policy that will give non-commercial student operated FM stations a one-time fine reduction for certain administrative violations of the FCC rules.

The FCC has announced this policy change in a consent decree the Commission recently reached with William Penn University of Oskaloosa, Iowa.  William Penn, a small liberal arts college has been operating KIGC-FM for over 30 years and has an annual budget of around $6,650 per year.  The station was recently cited for public file and ownership file violations which could have amounted to approximately $20,000 in fines. The station’s public file shortcomings and financial situation was noted in their renewal application.

REC has released a new version of myLPFM.  The following enhancements have been made:

Second Adjacent Channel Waiver

REC has classified all potential second adjacent waiver channels (those that are only short spaced to a second adjacent channel FM station) into one of four categories.  These categories are based on a simple distance spacing formula assuming the second adjacent channel stations are operating at full facilities of their station class. 

Starting today and running through April 19, the FCC has opened a filing window for a group of 639 applicants that were identified by the FCC as being located within spectrum limited markets or outside the market but within 39 km of the "grid" of a spectrum limited market.  Applicants are required to make a showing that their application does not prevent an LPFM opportunity at the identified protected channel points.

Applicants who filed during the 2003 Auction 83/Great Translator Invasion window were allowed to keep up to 70 applications nationwide with further restrictions nationwide over 50 and per market. Here's a rundown of the applications that were kept by the major players of the GTI window as well as other select applicants with an unusually high number of pending applications...

The following is a list of applicants from the 2003 Auction 83 (Great Translator Invasion) filing window and the number of their applications that were dismissed during the January, 2013 FCC Cap Compliance filing window. The status for these facilities have been updated in the REC databases and may not fully reflect in all REC services and functions until after the full database update on Saturday, February 9, 2013.

The broadcast community has lost a very interesting person..  Ben Freedman, who has been battling health issues has passed away on January 11, 2013 at the age of 64. 

Freedman was well known for some very essentric methods of selling jingles and production elements to radio stations, especially to non-commercial, internet and LPFM stations that operated on tight budgets as well as strangely named products such as "Jingle University " and "The Instant Radio Station".