The chief of the Media Bureau's Video Services Division says the commission will cut back on giving extensions to licensees whose stations aren’t on the air.
FCC To Crack Down On Dark Stations
Speaking at a brown bag luncheon in Washington yesterday, a top FCC regulator yesterday warned that the FCC will be tougher on TV stations that go dark, according to an attorney who attended and provided a report to TVNewsCheck.
Barbara Kreisman, chief of the Media Bureau’s Video Services Division, said the agency will be less likely to grant extensions allowing broadcasters to hang on to licenses for stations that are not on the air, according to the report. Licensees who are not prepared to be “full-time broadcasters” should get out of the business, she said.
The luncheon, which featured several FCC officials, was sponsored by the Federal Communications Bar Association.
The attorney’s report said that Kreisman also warned that the agency will be cracking down on Class A low-power stations that fail to meet their obligation to air at least three hours of children’s programming each week. Such stations, she said, risk losing their Class A status and the “extraordinary benefits” that come with it.
David Brown, associate division chief of the video services division, said that the FCC will not approve the sale of stations involved in shared services agreements that do not meet the criteria set forth in the four governing shared-services cases — Malara-Granite, Nexstar, Acklerly Group and Chesley Broadcasting of Youngstown.
Comments (2)
Warren Harmon says:
June 16, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Isn’t this the norm, why haven’t they been enforcing it, BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN BUSY TRYING TO KILL OTA BY DOING EVERYTHING BUT THEIR JOB.
We need an FCC with technical skills for God’s sake, all we have are lawyers that know nothing about tech, just look at the LightSquared befuddlement. A techie would have known better.
Bob Venditti says:
July 7, 2011 at 1:17 pm
“It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some good.” If the FCC’s desire to make a further spectrum grab for TV Channels 32-51 results in the Commission finally cracking down on all the FAKE Class A TV stations out there, that’s fine with me. With regard to the issue of FCC technical expertise, it’s time to dust off H.R.3501– The Federal Communications Engineering Sciences Qualification Act, from the 1991 102nd Congress. That bill never got out of Committee, but it did manage to acquire 16 co-sponsors before it died. See http://www.eibass.org/images/filings/senator%20snowe%20dec23.pdf for more info.