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August 24, 1999
  
      PRESS STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER GLORIA TRISTANI
  
            Re:  Mass Media Bureau's granting of applications to
            transfer radio licenses from Fuller-Jeffrey
            Broadcasting to Citadel Broadcasting in Portland,
            Maine.
  
                              
       I have previously described how the Commission's
  current method of applying the local radio ownership caps is
  illogical and unreasonable.  This is one of those cases,
  however, in which application of the Commission's approach
  appears to cross the line between being illogical and being
  unlawful.  Congress provided in the Telecommunications Act
  of 1996 that:
    
       in a radio market with 45 or more commercial radio
       stations, a party may own, operate, or control up to 8
       commercial radio stations, not more than 5 of which are
       in the same service (AM or FM).
  
       Thus, the plain language of the statute requires us to
  look at the same market -- i.e., to use the same definition
  of "market" -- when determining the number of radio stations
  in the market and when counting the number of stations that
  an entity owns, operates, or controls within that market.  
  
       Here, it appears that whatever "market" is examined,
  Citadel would violate the statute.  For instance, based on a
  signal contour overlap approach, there are 45 stations in
  Market 3 for purposes of establishing the statutory cap. 
  Of those 45 stations, Citadel will own 8 FM stations -- 3
  more than permitted.  Similarly, in the 22-station Portland
  Arbitron market (the definition of market actually used in
  the economic marketplace), Citadel will own 6 FM stations --
  2 more than permitted under the statute.  
  
       The only way this deal can be approved is through the
  definitional shell game to which I have objected repeatedly. 
  Although Citadel will own 8 FM stations in Market 3, the
  Commission does not count all of those stations against the
  5-station limit.  We only count those stations in Market 3
  with mutually overlapping signal contours against the cap. 
  But then we do not deduct those stations without mutually
  overlapping signal contours from the count of the overall
  number of stations in the market, which could reduce the cap
  itself.  So, accordian-like, we expand and contract the size
  of the "market" to suit our purposes.  Because this
  regulatory sleight-of-hand is at odds with the statute, my
  initial view is that I disagree with the Bureau's decision
  to grant the proposed license transfer.