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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 180 / Tuesday, September 21, 2021 / Proposed Rules and transmission facilities to provide communications via the airwaves.
Establishments in this industry have spectrum licenses and provide services using that spectrum, such as cellular services, paging services, wireless internet access, and wireless video services. The appropriate size standard under SBA rules is that such a business is small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. For this industry, U.S.
Census Bureau data for 2012 show that there were 967 firms that operated for the entire year. Of this total, 955 firms had employment of 999 or fewer employees and 12 had employment of 1,000 employees or more. Thus under this category and the associated size standard, the Commission estimates that the majority of wireless telecommunications carriers except satellite are small entities.
19. Television Broadcasting. This Economic Census category comprises establishments primarily engaged in broadcasting images together with sound. These establishments operate television broadcast studios and facilities for the programming and transmission of programs to the public.
These establishments also produce or transmit visual programming to affiliated broadcast television stations, which in turn broadcast the programs to the public on a predetermined schedule.
Programming may originate in their own studio, from an affiliated network, or from external sources. The SBA has created the following small business size standard for such businesses: Those having $41.5 million or less in annual receipts. The 2012 Economic Census reports that 751 firms in this category operated in that year. Of that number, 656 had annual receipts of $25,000,000
or less. Based on this data we therefore estimate that the majority of commercial television broadcasters are small entities under the applicable SBA size standard.
20. The Commission has estimated the number of licensed commercial television stations to be 1,377. Of this total, 1,258 stations or about 91
percent had revenues of $41.5 million or less, according to Commission staff review of the BIA Kelsey Inc. Media Access Pro Television Database BIA on November 16, 2017, and therefore these licensees qualify as small entities under the SBA definition. In addition, the Commission has estimated the number of licensed noncommercial educational television stations to be 384.
Notwithstanding, the Commission does not compile and otherwise does not have access to information on the revenue of NCE stations that would permit it to determine how many such stations would qualify as small entities.

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There are also 2,300 low power television stations, including Class A
stations LPTV and 3,681 TV translator stations. Given the nature of these services, we will presume that all of these entities qualify as small entities under the above SBA small business size standard.
21. In assessing whether a business concern qualifies as small under the above definition, business control affiliations must be included. Our estimate, therefore, likely overstates the number of small entities that might be affected by our action, because the revenue figure on which it is based does not include or aggregate revenues from affiliated companies. In addition, another element of the definition of small business requires that an entity not be dominant in its field of operation.
We are unable at this time to define or quantify the criteria that would establish whether a specific television broadcast station is dominant in its field of operation. Accordingly, the estimate of small businesses to which rules may apply does not exclude any television station from the definition of a small business on this basis and is therefore possibly over-inclusive. Also, as noted above, an additional element of the definition of small business is that the entity must be independently owned and operated. The Commission notes that it is difficult at times to assess these criteria in the context of media entities and its estimates of small businesses to which they apply may be over-inclusive to this extent.
22. Radio Stations. This Economic Census category comprises establishments primarily engaged in broadcasting aural programs by radio to the public. Programming may originate in their own studio, from an affiliated network, or from external sources. The SBA has established a small business size standard for this category as firms having $41.5 million or less in annual receipts. Economic Census data for 2012
show that 2,849 radio station firms operated during that year. Of that number, 2,806 firms operated with annual receipts of less than $25 million per year, 17 with annual receipts between $25 million and $49,999,999
million and 26 with annual receipts of $50 million or more. Therefore, based on the SBAs size standard the majority of such entities are small entities.
23. According to Commission staff review of the BIA/Kelsey, LLCs Media Access Pro Radio Database as of January 2018, about 11,261 or about 99.9
percent of 11,383 commercial radio stations had revenues of $41.5 million or less and thus qualify as small entities under the SBA definition. The
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Commission has estimated the number of licensed commercial AM radio stations to be 4,633 stations and the number of commercial FM radio stations to be 6,738, for a total number of 11,371. We note the Commission has also estimated the number of licensed noncommercial NCE FM radio stations to be 4,128. Nevertheless, the Commission does not compile and otherwise does not have access to information on the revenue of NCE
stations that would permit it to determine how many such stations would qualify as small entities. We also note, that in assessing whether a business entity qualifies as small under the above definition, business control affiliations must be included. The Commissions estimate therefore likely overstates the number of small entities that might be affected by its action, because the revenue figure on which it is based does not include or aggregate revenues from affiliated companies. In addition, to be determined a small business, an entity may not be dominant in its field of operation. We further note, that it is difficult at times to assess these criteria in the context of media entities, and the estimate of small businesses to which these rules may apply does not exclude any radio station from the definition of a small business on these basis, thus our estimate of small businesses may therefore be overinclusive. Also, as noted above, an additional element of the definition of small business is that the entity must be independently owned and operated.
The Commission notes that it is difficult at times to assess these criteria in the context of media entities and the estimates of small businesses to which they apply may be over-inclusive to this extent.
24. Cable Companies and Systems Rate Regulation. The Commission has also developed its own small business size standards, for the purpose of cable rate regulation. Under the Commissions rules, a small cable company is one serving 400,000 or fewer subscribers nationwide. Industry data indicate that there are 4,600 active cable systems in the United States. Of this total, all but five cable operators nationwide are small under the 400,000-subscriber size standard. In addition, under the Commissions rate regulation rules, a small system is a cable system serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers.
Commission records show 4,600 cable systems nationwide. Of this total, 3,900
cable systems have fewer than 15,000
subscribers, and 700 systems have 15,000 or more subscribers, based on the same records. Thus, under this standard
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