FCC continues to pursue Class A warfare

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FCCThis is the wrong moment in the history of Class A television to be operating outside the parameters of the FCC rules and regulations. Another round of notifications has gone out to licensees, requiring two Class A stations to simply pay a fine, and many more to show cause why they should not be busted down to LPTV status.


One of the latter, L4 Media Group, has quite a bit of explaining to do. It has 13 licenses to defend and multiple failures to explain. Among them – it kept the stations off air on numerous occasions to conserve its own financial resources; it has been using libraries and non-profits as locales for public files rather than its own local main studios, which appear to be lacking, and – this is the one that has been used lately by the FCC against other Class As – it lacks filed information on its children’s programming.

The stations include WBXA-CA Birmingham AL; WBXM-CA Montgomery AL; WBXG-CA Gainesville FL; WBXJ-CA Jacksonville FL; WZXZ-CA Orlando FL; WBXT-CA Tallahassee FL; WXSX-CA Savannah GA; WBXC-CA Champaign/Urbana IL; WBXF-CA Des Moines IA; WBXV-CA Louisville KY; WUBX-CA Durham NC; WBXU-CA Raleigh NC; and WBXP-CA Memphis TN.

KPAL Television, Inc. was called on the show-cause carpet strictly on lack of children’s filings for its KPAL-LP Palmdale CA. KPAL also had many other regulatory failures – in fact, the FCC said it “has failed to comply with most, if not all, of the ongoing Class A eligibility requirements for an extended period of time.” The station also lacked a main studio and left the air for significant periods of time.

Kingdom of God Inc. was also in the trio of licensees on the children’s programming issue, and has two stations to defend: WKOG-LP Indianapolis IN and WKGK-LP Kokomo IN. The stations were also off air for lengthy periods of time and failed to notify the Commission of that fact.

Omni Broadcasting Company, licensee of KOMI-CD Woodward OK, and Centex Television LP, licensee of KRHD-CD Bryan TX, responded promptly to the FCC’s initial inquiry about their children’s programming file failures, and had no other regulatory malfeasance to deal with, and both were hit with $3K fines.

RBR-TVBR observation: The FCC made it clear that a fine is in order for a station that is generally in compliance. But if multiple violations have piled up, the very existence of the stations as a Class A is on the line.