Deletions
The FCC has cancelled the license of Omni Broadcasting’s 93.5 WTKP Port St. Joe FL (and its application to relocate into the Panama City market on 93.7 Youngstown and $225,000 sale to Divine Word Communications).
The commission notes that WTKP went silent on November 5, 2015 due to a dispute with its tower owner and then resumed operation from an alternate site via STA on 12/3/15. No extension of the STA was ever filed, which expired on 6/1/16. In August 2016, WTKP filed to make the STA site its new permanent site, which was given a construction permit, but the station never filed for a license to cover.
On September 7, 2017, FCC inspectors observed the station operating from a third location 40 miles away with no STA and received verification that WTKP was leasing space to operate from that site. The station would then apply in October 2020 to relocate to 93.7 Youngstown. After filing a silent STA in August 2021, WTKP would then file for an STA in September 2021 to utilize the site of the application, but the station would never begin broadcasting there. Instead in August 2022, it would claim to have resumed operations on its originally licensed tower, but then a month later request an STA to operate from yet another site at reduced power because its licensed facility was “unavailable for long term operations”.
Following a review by the FCC’s Media Bureau, it was determined that WTKP may have been silent or operating with unauthorized facilities for at least more than one year, but specifying between June 1, 2016 to June 1, 2017. A letter of inquiry was sent to Omni Broadcasting owner Ron Hale in April 2022, in which he stated that the series of STAs were due to extreme hardship, including the regional economy and natural disasters, and that administrative mistakes were made, including failure to adhere to legal and technical requirements and notifications, but also said operational delays were due to the Bureau’s slow processing of applications during the COVID-19 pandemic. The response did not include the station’s EAS logs, or copy of a lease or explanation for operating at the unauthorized site in 2017.
The FCC found that WTKP failed to operate from an authorized site from at least June 1, 2016 when its 2015 STA expired until at least September 7, 2017 when the FCC agents observed it operating from the unauthorized site deeming the license expired as no documentation proved it was operating from an authorized site during that time period. Separately, the commission said the applications could be dismissed on the basis that Hale failed to provide the some of the requested information in the LOI including EAS logs, exact coordinates of the transmitter sites, station correspondence, and the operation from the unauthorized site.
The FCC has also cancelled the license of Jeannine Mason’s 93.7 KTZZ Conrad/Great Falls MT. In its license renewal application filed in January 2021, the station notes that in March 2017 “she lost control and possession of the physical assets necessary to broadcast the KTZZ and KTZZ-FM1 radio signal. The circumstances surrounding this transfer are not clear, and has resulted in the licensee holding a bare broadcast license. The duration of any discontinued operation is unknown. This loss of broadcast service is beyond the control of the licensee, however, she is working diligently to replace the missing property.” Mason also failed to respond to a letter of inquiry sent by the FCC in May.
Silent Notifcations
- Sandwich Massachusetts Public Schools’ 91.5 WSDH Sandwich MA (Roof replacement on school auditorium)
- S Content Marketing’s 94.5 KEMA Three Rivers TX (Power issues due to extreme heat)
- Eduardo Gallegos’s 105.5 KRIX Port Isabel IX (Transmitter damaged in thunderstorm)
