FCC Actions

With Roger Wahl pleading guilty to charges of trying to solicit male strangers to rape his female friend facilitated through his radio station, the FCC has rescinded approval of the sale of Oldies “QZ 93” 93.3 WQZS Meyersdale PA to his daughter Wendy Sipple for $10. The sale has been moved back to pending status awaiting further decision by the FCC’s Media Bureau.

The FCC has dismissed WIN Radio Broadcasting’s Petition For Reconsideration seeking to overturn the FCC’s decision to not delete Cantico Nuevo Ministry’s 1520 WTHE Mineola NY despite not operating from authorized facilities for over 365 days, although the FCC ruled that were it not for the 2019 government shutdown an STA would have been timely granted allowing the station to broadcast, but that due to WTHE broadcasting without FCC approval during the shutdown it issued a $5000 fine.

At its August 6 Open Meeting, the FCC will vote on eliminating the duplication rule for AMs. The elimination would allow AM stations with over 50 percent of overlapping signals to simulcast with the agency using an example of one station operating in all-digital mode once that is approved while another provides the same programming in analog. The rule preventing duplication will not be adjusted for FMs although the agency will consider waiver requests on a one-by-one basis.

Dismissals

The FCC has dismissed WSOS Radio LLC’s application to relocate 95.7 W239CN St. Augustine Beach FL to 95.5 as the agency rejects the applicant’s request for a major change waiver allowing it to skip a step in what would normally be a multi-step hop to its new tower location. WSOS Radio sought to move W239CN to the site of their co-owned 103.9 W280EY St. Augustine while feeding it with unique programming using an HD2 signal of their 1170 WSOS St. Augustine.

In regards to HD2 multicasts of AM signals, when the FCC approved the STA for Radio One’s 1310 WTLC Indianapolis to convert to all-digital via STA the agency rejected the plan to become the first AM station to operate with an HD multicast stating, “at this point, we are not authorizing the rebroadcast of the (second) multicast channel on an FM translator station.” Radio World has more details.