In what Commissioner Starks called, “The dawn of a new possibility for radio,” the FCC has unanimously approved radio geotargeting via FM boosters beyond the experimental basis established earlier this year.
This expands the rules that took effect on May 16, which allowed licensed FM stations to apply for one-year experimental authority to originate programming on up to 25 boosters. These boosters primarily retransmit signals from their parent FM or low-power FM station but may replace content with their own hyper-local programming for up to three minutes per hour. Unused minutes cannot carry over between hours.
Under the rules, geotargeting boosters must meet Emergency Alert System requirements, including an EAS Encoder and Decoder for FM stations and the capability to transmit EAS audio for LPFM stations. They are also permitted to cause limited interference with the parent station’s signal, provided the interference results from synchronized but distinct programming.
The immediate winner of the action is GeoBroadcast Solutions, which has advocated for its ZoneCasting technology despite opposition from the National Association of Broadcasters and major broadcasting groups. The NAB contends that ZoneCasting could disadvantage smaller stations by enabling larger central market stations to capture local advertising, potentially lowering ad rates and leading to redlining in less affluent areas.
That limited interference allowed by the ruling is also a cause of concern in “transition areas,” where overlapping content from primary and booster signals could cause static or distortion, frustrating listeners and undermining confidence in FM broadcasting.
In September, GeoBroadcast Solutions launched a national advisory board to guide geotargeting implementation. The board aims to serve minority and underserved communities through customized messaging, emergency notifications, and expanded public service broadcasting while establishing FM geotargeting best practices for nationwide implementation.
Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said, “This can help broadcasters further serve their local communities. It is going to benefit, I think collaterally, a lot of small businesses along the way. It has taken a lot of work to get here. It is something Commissioner Starks really identified that was an important contribution to the broadcast industry. He worked on this and got it across the finish line.”
Commissioner Starks commented, “Today’s Order finalizes the new tools broadcasters can utilize as they adapt and thrive in a competitive media environment. The ability to offer hyper-localized content means that stations can attract small businesses looking to customize their advertisements to a targeted audience and better reach their local communities. These new advertising streams can make a real difference, especially for the many small or minority broadcasters that are working hard to stay on the air.”
This is such a non-difference maker. Getting HD radio deja vu. The radio audience is gone. The clients are gone.
“…provided the interference results from synchronized but distinct programming.”
This is very poorly worded. “Synchronized” and “distinct” are two mutually-exclusive terms in this context; there is no such thing as “synchronized but distinct programming.” It is either synchronized and being simulcast, or it is distinct and *not* being simulcast, and is therefore not synchronized. I get that the *meaning* that this description is *intended* to convey is that the stations’s RF signals are synchronized so as to mitigate interference between the primary transmission and the booster’s transmission (as is already the technical requirement for boosters), but that’s not what this sentence says.