FCC to retire CDBS. REC preserves much of its history. Establishes new "Public Access" search tool.
The FCC broadcast filing system used from 1999~2023 may be going away, but it will not be forgotten, thanks to the REC Radio History Project
A quick history of CDBS
On September 23, 1999, the Mass Media Bureau (later to become the Media Bureau) of the Federal Communications Commission started to use the Consolidated Database System (CDBS). CDBS was an update to the Broadcast Application Processing System (BAPS) which started operation in 1978 as an effort to automate FCC broadcast administrative and engineering records that were previously recorded on index cards (known as “history cards”). Public access to CDBS filings was announced on February 28, 2000.
On April 28, 2000, the FCC announced new CDBS functionality that allowed for the electronic filing of certain broadcast applications. Eventually, most broadcast applications and other transactions would be electronically filed in CDBS.
CDBS would eventually be replaced by the License Management System (LMS). Broadcast services and certain applications would be slowly phased over to LMS starting with some television services in 2014 to AM radio in 2023.
Seeing the historical value of various elements of the CDBS data, REC Networks has taken several initiatives to help preserve elements of the information provided through CDBS that would otherwise be lost and only retrievable through the black hole known as the National Archives.
How CDBS was accessed
CDBS had two public portals and a daily dump of raw data.
Electronic Filing
First, was the system that permitted electronic filing of applications. This system would evolve over time as more application types were added to CDBS. The application entry portal would stop operations in 2022 due to technical issues. A temporary process requiring applicants to email applications to staff was used for the few application types that still required CDBS at the time.
CDBS Public Access
The second portal, CDBS Public Access gave users a full read-only look into the applications and facility records that were maintained by the database. The various entry screens allowed users to search for records using various methods as well as view copies of applications, exhibits, pleadings, decisions and public correspondence between the Media Bureau and the applicants.
CDBS Public Access at the FCC will be retired on January 2, 2025. This will officially mark the end of the Consolidated Database System at the FCC.
CDBS public data dump
In addition to the interfaces, detailed information regarding broadcast station engineering, ownership and other administrative activities was made available through machine readable database files. These files were normally released by the FCC, each business day, updated to reflect the previous business day’s activities.
REC Radio History Project preserves elements of the CDBS Public Access system
While REC had been preserving some CDBS elements for the past few years, those efforts were stepped up over the past two weeks since the FCC announced the retirement date of CDBS Public Access.
Public Notice Comments
Whenever the FCC received an application or made an action on one, information would be published in a daily public notice. In the days of the history cards and BAPS, these comments were in some cases, very descriptive of what the application was doing, especially in applications involving engineering. When applications were entered into BAPS by staff during the 80s and 90s, the public notice comments, following the history card style would be entered into a database table in BAPS. While this data table was never made public through a data dump, the data could be retrieved through CDBS Public Access by clicking on a link to the Public Notice Comments. This was especially helpful if there was no full engineering record available for the application in the CDBS public data.
While REC had previously obtained some of this data as part of past public notice projects, REC has recently made an aggressive effort to check broadcast applications of various types and was able to capture those public notice comments. Through this, and past efforts, REC now has public notice comments for 576,444 broadcast applications that were filed in CDBS as well as those that were originally on history cards or entered into BAPS and then migrated over to CDBS in 1999.
This project helps fill in a huge hole of broadcast station engineering and ownership history between 1978 when history cards were discontinued to 1995 when the FCC started to post the daily public notices on the internet.
The public notice comments retrieved through this and previous projects can now be viewed at REC’s FCCdata.org. To help improve the visibility of these comments, REC has opened up the Historic Grid View on FCCdata to all AM and FM records, including those that have not been enhanced by a the History Card or the Radio Service Bulletin Projects. REC also also making the full public notice dataset available for download on the REC CDBS page. The data file is pipe-delimited and is designed to be integrated with the FCC provided CDBS data dump files, which are also available on the REC CDBS page.
CDBS Import Letters
Import letters are the documents that are associated with a broadcast application or facility other than the exhibits submitted by the applicant. These can include letters and emails from the applicant to FCC staff or vice versa, FCC decisions, copies of old license documents and other documents. The pre-1978 history cards can also be found in the Import Letter collection.
While REC already had a considerable number of import letters already in our shop, REC has performed a very aggressive operation in order to save as many of the import letters as possible. As a result, REC has ended up with 93,575 PDF files and an additional 1,017 import letter extracts in plain text form. Overall, REC has been able to preserve 98.3% of all known import letters in CDBS. While some of those import letters did get migrated to LMS, we will store them also on our server.
You will be able to access the import letters using FCCdata.org and through the new CDBS Historic Access we will discuss below.
New CDBS Historic View website
REC has established the first phase of a new website that has much of the same look and feel as the recently retired FCC CDBS Public Access tool. Many (but not all) of the features you remember from the CDBS Public Access tool are on the new REC tool.
The new tool will allow you to access the data that is in CDBS including the recently gathered import letters and public notice comments.
The CDBS Historic View website is a part of the REC Radio History Project and is intended for historical research only. The CDBS Historic View website should not be used to gather information on current facilities.
To access the CDBS Historic View, please go to:
https://cdbs.recnet.com
To review currently authorized and proposed facilities, please go to:
https://FCCdata.org
FCC and REC CDBS data files
REC has the final CDBS engineering data file provided by the FCC in January, 2024. We also have the technical information and code tables that were provided by the FCC. We also have the last 2021 extract of the “white space” database that was used for internet devices that are authorized to use empty TV channels.
REC has also provided database files for the public notice comments and import letters that were described above. We also are moving to open data a database table that was used by REC as a transaction log that tracked the dates and times when the status of CDBS applications were updated as they were detected by our CDBSbot program. CDBSbot was used in conjunction with our website FCC.today, the dashboard to the FCC Media Bureau, powered by REC. CDBSbot would eventually be replaced by LMSlist and REC’s eLMS platform which allowed for “near real time” updating of facility information across various REC systems and services.
The three REC open data files are designed to be used together with the FCC provided engineering data file dump download.
To access the data files and to get more information on the history of CDBS, check out our CDBS history page at:
https://recnet.com/cdbs
The history of broadcasting is important and over the past two decades, REC has been actively engaging in efforts to preserve the history of broadcasting from an engineering and ownership perspective through the REC Radio History Project.
Will we be able to access the .xml files for contours in Google Earth as before? The ability to download those and especially to download multiple files has been so valuable over the years.