The Federal Communications Commission has announced that starting on Wednesday, September 2, 2015 at 6PM EDT and going through the Labor Day weekend, various FCC database and electronic filing systems will not be available for access.

The FCC has announced that any filings that are currently due on September 2, 3, 4 or 8, 2015 will now be due on September 9, 2015. 

See REC's System/Service Status page for outage information and other changes happening at REC.

For more information on this outage, please see:
http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0820/DA-…

REC joins with other LPFM advocates in admonishing Beasley Media Group in their attack on a new LPFM station.  As a new LPFM station, the station should never be expected to come out of the box with their full format and services.  These things take time.  Regardless of the content the station ends up programming, the First Amendment precludes the FCC from taking action on entertainment format.  The Commission only has the authority to take action on unprotected forms of speech such as commercial content and indecent material outside the designated safe-harbor hours.

With Beasley having the only Spanish station in the market pulling numbers, the Hispanic population of Tampa-St. Petersburg deserve a choice.  

Dave Solomon's Low Power FM Advocacy Group (LPFM.AG) has filed their Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC.  If the FCC decides to assign a rulemaking number and move it forward for comments, it may take a month based on how long it took to move REC's LP-250 petition that became RM-11749. 

On January 15, 2014, the FCC granted the first 107 of what is currently 1,875 construction permit grants.  Here we are, just over 18 months later and we have seen the first construction permits expire.  With a total of 144 grants made on January 15 & 16, 2014 with expiration dates of July 15 & 16, 2015 respectively, only five construction permits have lapsed: