When Orchard Media Services first began working with stations and their FCC Compliance requirements, we often described their lack of concentration on such issues as comparable to playing a game of Radio Russian Roulette. Think about it like this: Each day a manager, or owner or responsible party shows up to the station, they are playing Russian Roulette that the FCC will show up to inspect their station. One "bullet" gets loaded in the cylinder represents the FCC inspector. Each morning, this person would spin the cylinder and fire it. Their chances of the FCC coming for an inspection would be one in six. Over the years, we’ve had to adjust our comparison as we have seen many different experiences all over the country. Now, you need to add another "bullet" to the cylinder for a "minority interest group or coalition organization". Another "bullet" needs to be added for a "disgruntled employee". Then, another needs to be added for those pesky "morning show personalities" who may put the stations license in jeopardy with another questionable prank. You can see now, that the cylinder can become quite full, until you have a very potentially explosive situation at your station. Is it wise to ignore your FCC Compliance, especially when the period of license renewal is rounding the bend, beginning in the Eastern states in the coming months.

During the month of November, Orchard Media traveled to more stations. We were either conducting more "Mock FCC Inspections" with the California Broadcasters Association’s Volunteer Inspection Program or we were doing our regular Public File work. It’s been a very busy year, and we are truly grateful for all the work.

As you know, we always share some of our road trip stories with our readers, and this month is no exception. If nothing else, we hope that our experiences out on the road, visiting station after station will give broadcasters a real idea about the state of the industry.

At one city, which will remain nameless, we inspected four stations in a cluster ownership. Now, part of inspection process is to concentrate on viewing the Public File in the morning, along with other in-house items like station logs, EAS and Political Files. In the afternoon, we take a trip to the transmitter site. If the station being inspected is an AM station with multiple towers, that means we’’ do a complete monitor points check as well. As you can see, it can make a long full day. We like to give stations a full day of thorough inspection – so they will have a complete idea of their overall compliance. After all, that’s the service they are paying for.

The FCC rules requires all broadcast station licenses to assure that their stations operate within the tolerance specified by the applicable technical rules and in accordance with the terms of the station’s license. Also each station is to maintain a Public File. Radio stations here in California have a license that is good for eight years, and the current license period is: 1997-2005. Before the FCC can renew a station’s license, the FCC must determine whether it has served the public interest.

Part of serving the public and community of license is to place into this public file certain specified material. The documents in each station’s public inspection file will have information about that station. So by spending the full morning going through this file, we can learn a lot about how the station has served the public in that community.

There are many documents that stations must keep the following material in their public inspection file, and this month we want to talk about the Issues/Programs List. Every quarter (every three months), all stations must prepare and place in their Public File a list of program s that have provided their most significant treatment of community issues during the preceding three months. The list must describe both the issue and the programming where the issue was discussed. The station must keep this list for the entire license term.

So lets talk about what we found in our visit. First off, lets do a little math. Since the license is for eight years and this list is to be placed into the Public File 4 times per year, that means that: 8x4 or 32 quarterly reports must be filed and placed in this station’s Public File.

Since this is a cluster of 4 stations, that means a total now of 32 x 4 for this cluster of stations or a total of 128 reports. Of course this is a lot of documentation! One hundred and twenty eight reports! That means that a fully qualified Public File Custodian should do it. The Public File duties should NOT be assigned to the overnight Disc Jockey, or the Chief Engineer who is already inundated with keeping the stations on the air, or somebody else on your staff that must spend its full time in other major departments at your station. Remember, the Public File Custodian is a key player in getting your license renewed in 2005 (depending on what state you are in). The Public File should be treated with a good deal of importance, as it is the stations ONLY documentation or proof of performance for the new license term. Now remember that date of 2005 if for California. Each state has a different date. The states in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia will start their license renewal process in 2003.

I was somewhat shocked to see what this station thought was the most important issue to be discussed on the air about their community of license.

So here are some of those issues just for chuckles:

At the conclusion of this list and other issues, was this following statement:

Before we comment on those issues, let me explain about another wrong item. Did you see in the above line that this report was available for inspection upon request? Here is somebody that not only doesn’t know what issues for a community really are nor knows Public Inspection File rules. You don’t take reservations to see Public Files. Public Files are available Monday- Friday 9-5. All of these requirements are found in Rule 73.3526.

Rule 3526 also talks about some other matters about Public Files.

#1 each station is to have its own Public File.

#2 if you have a construction permit to build a new station, there must be a public file as even though you’re not on the air.

#3 if you are off the air does to some reason the rule states that as long as you have authorization to operate a station you are to have a Public File. So I would assume if your station were off the air, you had better put a note on your closed station’s front door that the Public File is located at Chamber of Commerce, the Public Library, a law office or some other place in town where the public can go and see your file. Please consult your FCC Attorney.

Now back to our wonderful list of issues from above.

In rule 73.3526 See the below item:

(12) Radio issues/programs lists.

For commercial AM and FM broadcast stations, every three months a list of programs that have provided the station's most significant treatment of community issues during the preceding three month period. The list for each calendar quarter is to be filed by the tenth day of the succeeding calendar quarter (e.g., January 10 for the quarter October--December, April 10 for the quarter January--March, etc.).

The list shall include a brief narrative describing what issues were given significant treatment and the programming that provided this treatment. The description of the programs shall include, but shall not be limited to, the time, date, duration, and title of each program in which the issue was treated. The lists described in this paragraph shall be retained in the public inspection file until final action has been taken on the station's next license renewal application.

No, lets go back to this cluster of stations we’ve been talking about. We were asked to present an impromptu seminar about what goes into a Public File for this group. The meeting was scheduled for that very afternoon and those present were the Program Directors or each of the stations, as well as some management personnel. When I read them their list of issues some of management were shocked. Even they had to acknowledge that these were not real issues for the community. When they were asked how did the station decide on the issues. One of the PD’s commented, by way of faxes that were sent to the station. I asked the PD where was the fax from the Barbie people, and the fax from the "first kiss" coalition, and the one from the body piercing and tattoo organization.

In short, this station was unclear as to any procedural way to collect information from the community of license to try and select the issues and was only trying to get higher ratings by having provocative issues. It is crucial that stations first place a responsible, trained employee in charge of the Public Files and not treat these files as a nuisance, but as important elements of the overall operations of their station.

On a side note, as you know, we were in Hawaii in October, conducting Volunteer Inspections for the Hawaii Association of Broadcasters. Initially, we were contracted to conduct inspections on ten stations, and upon our arrival, the associated petitioned, pleaded and convinced more stations to sign up and take advantage of this opportunity to get a full accounting of their FCC Compliance standings. By the time we were finished in Hawaii, we had inspected a total of sixteen stations.

The FCC just released their "Public Notice" on their website and it showed that one of the stations in Honolulu was issued a $10,000 notice of violation for their Local Public Inspection File. Had this station chosen to participate in the volunteer program, not only would they have been made aware of their problems, they would have had a window opportunity to address it before the FCC would issue a fine. The fee definitely outweighed them "playing Russian Roulette" with their FCC Compliance.

The Volunteer Inspection Program is available in most states across the country. If you haven’t signed up yet, you should.