News Article

John Garziglia, a Communications attorney in Womble Carlyle’s Washington, D.C., office, gave his forecast for the new Democratic regime at the FCC when interviewed by Taylor on Radio-Info on January 20, 2009. "The big issue will be diversification of ownership, which means one way or another, the ownership limits will be rolled back," said John. "Let’s hope the FCC finds a way to change its ownership rules in a way that does not kill the radio industry. While I doubt that divestitures will be ordered, we may very well see restrictions upon sales of large groups. For entrepreneurs and small broadcasters, this may represent an opportunity. Just as radio station prices reached ‘bubble’ levels several years ago, on the flip side, the prices of many properties may in the next year dive much deeper than long-term business prospects merit. A good number of stations might once again be owned by real broadcasters, or to paraphrase a grossly overused expression, radio stations will once again be owned by Radio Road, not Wall Street."

John also predicted that "we will see a new rule allowing for AM carriage on FM translators sometime during this year, but the same action will include substantial restrictions on the now-pending FM translator applications, as well as a quick roll-out and 3rd adjacent channel and 2nd adjacent channel spacing relaxations for new LPFM stations. It is unfortunate that our industry fought LPFM so vigorously, as the ideal resolution for broadcasters would have been for them and LPFM proponents to come to an accommodation that allowed for local origination of programming on FM translators. (Program origination has been allowed on TV translators for years.) That would have given LPFM proponents several thousand possibilities for low power stations, while at the same time getting broadcasters an outlet for the carriage of AM stations, or for additional programming targeted at the community. I sense that LPFM proponents will have much more political power than translator applicants in both Congress and the next FCC. So broadcasters may look back and wish they had not been so nasty to LPFM proponents."