In the Matter of AMENDMENT OF SECTION 73.202, TABLE OF
ASSIGNMENTS, FM
BROADCAST STATIONS (ROCHESTER, MINN.)
Docket
No. 16715 RM-965
REPORT
AND ORDER
5
F.C.C.2d 312, 8 Rad. Reg. 2d (P & F) 1558
RELEASE NUMBER: FCC 66-873
September 28, 1966 Adopted
BY THE COMMISSION: COMMISSIONERS BARTLEY AND LEE ABSENT; COMMISSIONERS
COX AND JOHNSON DISSENTING AND ISSUING STATEMENTS.
1. The Commission has before it for consideration its notice of
proposed rulemaking, FCC 66-541, issued in this proceeding on June 16, 1966,
and published in the Federal Register on June 22, 1966, 31 F.R. 8639, inviting
comments on a proposal to assign channel 269A to Rochester, Minn. This action
was taken in response to a joint petition filed on May 19, 1966 (RM-965), and
amended on June 13, 1966, by Olmsted County Broadcasting Co. and North Central
Video, Inc. These parties are the licensees of station KOLM (AM) and KWEB (AM),
Rochester, Minn., respectively. The proposal was to assign a fourth FM channel
to Rochester as follows:
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2. Rochester has a population of 40,663 (1960 U.S. census) and
its county has a population of 65,532. It has three AM stations, two of which
are daytime-only stations [FN1] and
the third is a class IV station. The two class C FM assignments are in
operation. Two applications have been filed by the petitioners for the
remaining class A channel (244A). These applications, BPH- 5145 and 5192, are
mutually exclusive and have been designated for comparative hearing.
Petitioners state that the two remaining AM stations without an FM outlet would
like 'to contribute to the general diversity of program sources for their
community,' that they are anxious to avoid a lengthy and expensive comparative
hearing, and that the proposed additional assignment will meet all the minimum
mileage requirements of the rules. With respect to the city of Rochester,
petitioners submit that its population has increased 17.5 percent in the last 5
years, that approximately 450,000 persons visit it each year, a large portion
of this number attributable to Mayo Clinic, and that it is a very important
industrial, medical, educational, and cultural center. Petitioners assert that
a special 1965 census showed Rochester to have a population of nearly 48,000,
and that its growth is continuing. For the above stated reasons, petitioner
urges that the addition of another FM channel to the city of Rochester would
serve the public interest.
FN1 One of these (KWEB) has a
construction permit for nighttime operation.
3. Our notice invited comments additionally on the extent to
which the proposed assignment would affect possible alternative uses of the
proposed and adjacent channels in this general area. In response, petitioners
submit that the proposed assignment can be used in a limited area in which only
2 cities of over 10,000 persons (Winona, Minn., and La Crosse, Wis.) are located
and that both of these already have FM assignments. They state that the
assignment in Winona has not been applied for while that at La Crosse is in
use. In addition, they point out that channel 269A could be used at La Crosse
as well as Rochester if a site a few miles out of the city of La Crosse is
used. No oppositions to the proposed assignment in Rochester were filed.
4. The proposal in question would provide the large and growing
community of Rochester with two additional FM services at an early date, would
result in the elimination of a lengthy and costly comparative hearing, and
provide the area with a diversity of radio broadcast programing, without
precluding future needed assignments in the general area. We are of the view,
therefore, that it would serve the public interest and should be adopted.
5. Authority for the adoption of the amendment contained herein
is contained in sections 4(i), 303, and 307(b) of the Communications Act of
1934, as amended.
6. In view of the foregoing, It is ordered, That, effective
November 25, 1966, section 73.202 of the Commission's rules and regulations,
the FM Table of Assignments, Is amended to read, insofar as the community named
is concerned, as follows:
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7. It is further ordered, That this proceeding is Terminated.
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, * BEN F. WAPLE, Secretary.
DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER KENNETH A. COX
I think this action violates sound allocations practice. It gives
Rochester, Minn., more than its fair share of aural service and blocks the
possible use of the frequency to meet future needs of other communities in this
area as they may develop.
The Commission returned to the use of a table of allocations for
the FM service in order to avoid the concentration of facilities in the larger
markets. The demand system which has prevailed in AM radio -- and which was
employed for awhile in FM as well -- leads to multiple services in big cities
because the economic opportunities seem more attractive there. This has
sometimes resulted in the authorization of so many stations that some, or
perhaps all, of them are not soundly viable operations. At the same time, the
assignment of so many frequencies to the bigger communities blocks their use in
surrounding areas which may have a paucity of service -- or, at least, of local
service.
The allocation table avoids this by distributing the abvilable
frequencies throughout the country with due regard both for the present needs
of existing communities and for the future needs of communities now too small
to support broadcast stations -- or perhaps not even in existence yet. The
advantages of such a table were summarized as follows in the first report in
docket No. 14185:
* * * (1) a preengineered table is the best way to insure
efficiency of channel use, better than leaving channel use to the more or less
random determination of application filing; (2) a table is the best way of
making provision for future needs which are not at the moment ripe for
expression in application form -- e.g., needs of smaller communities, and of
areas where support for FM is lacking at the present time; (3) a table forms a
better way of insuring compliance with section 307(b) of the act -- calling for
a fair and equitable distribution of facilities -- than does the random
application process, which necessarily has to a degree a 'first come first
served' aspect.
The FM Table of Assignments adopted in that proceeding allocated
channels 244A,
248, and 295 to Rochester, which had a 1960 population of 40,663 (now estimated to be 48,000). The majority now adds another class A channel.
The FM allocations
for other communities in the area are as follows:
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Rochester is already well supplied with broadcast facilities. It
has a local VHF television station and receives grade B signals from VHF
stations in Austin, Minn., Mason City, Iowa, and La Crosse, Wis. It has three
AM stations (one daytime only and two [FN1]
full time) and two FM stations, one of which is not affiliated with any of the
AM stations. The added allocation now made by the majority gives this community
seven aural stations, six of them authorized to operate full time. It gives
Rochester four FM channels although the criteria used in setting up the FM
Table of Assignments allowed only two FM channels for cities the size of Rochester.
(See footnote 1, supra, for the reason for the third FM allocation.)
FN1 One of these was a daytimer until
earlier this year when the Commission, over the dissents of Commissioner
Wadsworth and myself, waived our rules to grant it a nighttime authorization.
See North Central Video, Inc., FCC 66- 473. Actually, Rochester had been given
one more FM channel than most other communities its size to make up for the
then existing shortage in nighttime service. Now the majority, in my judgment,
compounds the damage it did to our AM rules in authorizing the nighttime grant
by doing violence to our FM allocations principles to provide a total of six
nighttime aural services for this community.
By comparison, look at La Crosse, Wis. This city is almost exactly
as large as Rochester but it has only one FM allocation (a class C channel
which is in use) and three full-time AM stations, plus a television station.
While the parties supporting this allocation for Rochester contended that the
channel here involved could also be used at La Crosse if a site a few miles
outside that city were used, I am advised that this may not be possible.If not,
La Crosse will have four aural services while Rochester is given seven.
The channel in question could also be used at Winona, a community
a little over half the size of Rochester. It has two AM stations, one a
full-time class IV station, the other a daytimer. It has one as yet unused
class A FM assignment. As against the seven aural services to be provided for
Rochester, Winona has two, plus the possibility of one more, and is being
frozen at that level. Not only may Winona grow to a degree which will generate
demand for additional service, but other communities in the area now too small
to justify FM assignments may also develop to a degree which will make further
broadcast facilities desirable. But there will be no flexibility in the Table
of Assignments to accommodate such needs, even though the very purpose of such
a table is to prevent present demand from blocking future needs.
The only reasons for making this assignment are (1) that
Rochester is a large and growing community (but so are many others of its
general size, but which will never have seven aural services), (2) that this
will result in the elimination of a lengthy and costly comparative proceeding
(this is really subversive of the whole concept of an allocations table; it is
simply not any part of our function to spare private parties the burdens of a
contest for a scarce frequency), and (3) that it will provide the area with a
diversity of radio programing (it already has more than its reasonable share)
without precluding future needed assignments in the general area (which I think
is of doubtful factual accuracy). As is indicated by my parenthetical comments,
I do not think these are valid reasons for the action taken. This is allocation
for private interest rather than in the public interest. I therefore dissent.
DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER JOHNSON
I concur in the dissenting statement of Commissioner Cox.
I would, however, like to stress that my principal
dissatisfaction with the majority's disposition of this case runs far deeper
and in a different channel.
The allocation of commercial broadcast properties is but part of
a larger system of spectrum allocation -- to Government and private users --
for a variety of purposes.
Such a process should, in my view, be rational, consistent,
capable of articulation, and the product of the most thorough research, and
analysis of empirical data, of which we are capable.
Today's decision seems more the product of an ad hoc disposition
reigning in the absence of any clearly articulated standards for allocation
priorities. The considerations which Commissioner Cox mentions should, it seems
to me, form but a part of the foundation for a thorough appraisal and then
definition of why, when, and where we allocate frequencies and stations.
Until such a study and conclusions are available, however, I,
too, can only consider each case as it arises. And in this instance I choose to
concur with Commissioner Cox, for the reasons he states.