The Great FM Translator Application Purge has moved one step closer: the FCC has formally initiated the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) process which must be completed before the “information collection” aspects of the herd thinning measures can be implemented. With respect to the several thousand new FM translator applications still pending since 2003, the new rules adopted last March in the Fourth Report and Order (4th R&O) impose application caps of (a) 50 nationwide and (b) one in each of the 156 markets identified in Appendix A of the 4th R&O. Any applicant with more than 50 apps nationwide and/or more than one app in any of the listed markets must dismiss enough applications to bring themselves under the limits. The letters necessary to seek those dismissals constitute “information collections” subject to the PRA.

Additionally, the 4th R&O affords pending FM translator applicants some limited opportunities to amend their applications. Those amendments, too, are “information collections”.

With its notice in the Federal Register, the Commission has invited the usual PRA comments on both aspects.  We’d like to be able to tell you exactly what the "information collections" actually look like, but the notice doesn’t contain any examples.  Instead, it provides instructions for how to find copies on the OMB website — but when we tried to follow those instructions, we came up empty.  Ideally this problem will be corrected before comments are due.

And speaking of the due date, anyone so inclined has until June 29, 2011 to submit comments to the Commission. After that, the Commission will bundle up all comments received and ship them over to the Office of Management and Budget, which will open its own 30-day comment period. After that, look for a notice that OMB has approved the process, which will clear the way for the Commission to open its doors for dismissals/amendments. If things move smoothly, it looks like those doors might swing open toward the end of the summer. (Check back here for updates.)

While we would like to say that the PRA process gives everyone a meaningful opportunity to affect the course of FCC regulations, recent experience suggests that that might not be entirely accurate. Still, the invitation for comments has been issued, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t pass the word along.