LPTV Displacement Settlement Window Closes January 10th

Posted on November 30th, 2018 by

The FCC’s announced filing window for remaining mutually exclusive LPTV displacement filing window applicants to file technical amendments or proposed settlements to resolve their application conflicts will officially close at 11:59 p.m. ET on January 10, 2019.

Unilateral engineering amendments, legal settlements and engineering settlements are permitted to assist the remaining 167 mutually exclusive applicants in resolving application conflicts. The FCC will not process such amendments piecemeal as they are filed, but will instead wait until the end of the window to process all amendments.

The FCC encourages applicants that remain to seek out solutions that involve moves or amendments that are compliant with the minor modification rules for LPTV stations. Significantly though, the FCC leaves open the possibility of an applicant seeking a channel change to resolve a mutually exclusive situation, which is a major change under the rules. Such a change would apparently only be available to applicants that are unable to resolve their mutual exclusivity with a minor change. Applicants whose conflicts are not resolved by the deadline will proceed to a highest-bidder-wins auction sometime in 2019.