From this morning's Tom Taylor NOW column...
“Elimination of the Main Studio Rule” is likely at the FCC’s October 24 meeting. Last month FCC Chair Ajit Pai told the NAB/RAB Radio Show “It’s time for the Main Studio rule to go” – and he meant it. The Chairman recycled a story he’s told about a Minnesota station owner who didn’t build out an AM construction permit because of the cost of complying with the rule (September 7 NOW). That’s not just a physical space near the community of license (within the primary signal contour), but also “full-time management and staff during normal business hours” and “program origination capability.” To Pai, “local access to a physical station is no longer necessary” in 2017. Yesterday’s FCC “Fact Sheet” traces the requirement to back to 1939, “to ensure that stations would be accessible and responsive to their communities.” But now, says Pai, it’s a burden and erasing it “will produce substantial benefits.” Not everybody in the radio community’s going to like this. The Fact Sheet reveals that licensees would still have to maintain a local or toll-free phone number. And they’d be expected to “maintain any portion of the public file that is not part of the online public file at a publicly-accessible location within the station’s community of license.” Will it pass a vote? Chairman Pai can count on Republicans Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr, and that’s enough.
Let me translate this for you. Radio stations run by conglomerates no longer have to be located in the town they broadcast, so they won't be. Soon all radio stations will be run out of the conglomerate headquarters and your town will simply have a toll free number. Imagine the cost savings for the conglomerates! The chairman delviers for them again, and local radio (and people who listen to it) can take a flying leap.
The FCC was created to protect the public airwaves. it is now intentionally doing the opposite.
