Reexamination of Comparative Standards for Noncommercial Educational Applicants

The Commission adopted new methods to select among competing applications to construct noncommercial educational (NCE) broadcast stations or to make changes in existing facilities of such stations. The Commission will use a point system to select among mutually exclusive applicants on reserved channels, to streamline the current selection process and make it faster and simpler for applicants and for the Commission. The Commission will use existing auction procedures to select among mutually exclusive applications on non-reserved ("commercial") channels, even if one or more of the applicants proposes to operate noncommercially. To facilitate the transition to new "filing window" procedures, the Commission implemented a freeze on the filing of new applications for reserved channel noncommercial educational broadcast stations.