FCC Report 3/26: Three Translator Licenses Cancelled For Not Existing
The FCC is once again opening a proceeding to revoke the license of Durlyn Broadcasting Company’s AC “Magic 95.9” WPNC-FM Plymouth NC for failure to pay delinquent regulatory fees and associated interest, administrative costs, and penalties owed to the agency.
The FCC states that Durlyn owes a total of $18,767.19 for unpaid debts from 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The company is given sixty days to show that full payment of all outstanding regulatory fee debt has been made or show cause why the payment is inapplicable or should be waived or deferred. Otherwise it may lead to the revocation of the station’s license.
The station was given a similar notice in July 2019 with the station at the time owing $11,560.13 and had its license revoked and quickly restored in 2017 over those debts.
Three translator licenses owned by Legacy Preservation Foundation have been cancelled after an informal objection last year opened doubt to the legal operating status of them. 94.9 K235CJ Dolan Springs AZ, 103.9 K280GF Crystal NV, and 105.5 K288FS Pahrump NV were shown to not have antennas at their licensed coordinates and not broadcasting in the objection from March 2022. Following the objection, Legacy Preservation Foundation filed an opposition on procedural grounds but not about the operating status of the translators. That led to the FCC sending a Letter of Inquiry seeking the operational history of the three signals including contracts, bills, and location of the antennas.
In their response for K235CJ, Legacy Preservation Foundation’s only response was an erroneous claim that the translator’s license does not expire until August 2025 and not its pending October 1, 2021 renewal application. As it failed to rebut the claim that the station did not transmit for more than 12 consecutive months the license was deemed expired. For the other two licenses, declarations were given that the translators were “constructed as proposed” but failed to acknowledge that there was even a tower for either to broadcast from as stated in the objection. For K280GF and K288FS the engineers state they was taken silent around December 30, 2021 to relocate to new locations but no applications to do so were ever filed. Nor do their declarations indicate that either had any personal knowledge of the location, construction or operation of the translators. Taking date of the silence and since no resumption of operation was ever filed, those signals were also deemed expired. In addition, FCC field agents visited the licensed sites in May 2022 and earlier this month and verified that there were no towers let alone any sign of construction.
Deletions
Following an FCC inquiry, the license for Nevada Radio LLC’s 1530 KQSP Shakopee MN has been surrendered. The FCC noted that there were multiple complaints to the Enforcement Bureau alleging that KQSP had been silent since December 2021 without requesting an STA to do so. That was followed by a June 2022 visit from an FCC field agent that also observed no signal emanating from the station.
After taking 1240 WHMQ Greenfield MA silent last month due to a malfunction of its Antenna Tuning Unit, Saga Communications has requested the station’s license be cancelled. WHMQ had been simulcasting Liberal Talk 1400 WHMP/101.5 W268CZ Northampton MA.
Following the agreement between Family Stations and VCY America to end the time share of 88.3, the license of Family’ KPHF Phoenix AZ has been cancelled. KPHF previously operated from 7:30pm to 4:00am daily with VCY America’s KVCP Phoenix broadcasting on the signal the remainder of the day. VCY America is paying Family Stations $800,000 to gain full access to the frequency, with Family’s programming moving the 107.5 K298CK Phoenix fed by KVCP-HD2.
FM Changes […]
