It’s not often that an unlicensed television station gets detected by the FCC Enforcement Bureau and be liable for a sizable forfeiture payment.
Yet, that’s exactly what the Commission did Tuesday (1/29) to the operator of a Kentucky-based low-power TV stations.
Being handed a $144,344 fine via a Forfeiture Order adopted Tuesday (1/28) are Vearl Pennington and Michael Williamson.
They’re not exactly pirates, like the many unlicensed radio station operators plaguing the Bronx, parts of Boston and South Florida.
As RBR+TVBR first reported in May 2017, Pennington and Williamson continued to operate what’s now the unlicensed low-power television station DW10BM in Morehead, Ky., for years after the FCC license for their station was cancelled.
In 1990, Pennington was granted an FCC license to operate the LPTV station.
Pennington renewed the station’s license in 1993, but failed to do so again in 1998.
Six years later, the Media Bureau wrote to Pennington to inquire if he had submitted a renewal request in 1998. It received no response, so the Media Bureau canceled the station’s license, in 2004.
Pennington, joined by Williamson, continued to operate the station despite their lack of an FCC-issued license.
After learning of the continued, unlicensed operation of the station, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau sent field agents to personally warn Pennington and Williamson that their unlicensed broadcasts violated FCC rules and the Communications Act.
That did nothing to stop them: Despite the warning, the duo continued to operate the station. That brought the May 2017 NAL proposing a fine of $144,344, even as the duo insisted that the Commission never recognized the renewal of the station some 24 years ago.
“TV-10” is perhaps best-known in the community for a call-in “trading post” program, Buy a Dog, Sell a Hog.
In its NAL, the FCC had little remorse for Pennington.
“Even assuming for the sake of argument that Pennington did not receive the 1993 License Renewal, as the then-licensee of the station, he was responsible for knowing the status of his station’s license,” it said. “We also reject TV-10’s contention that they were confused about the need to renew the station license upon its expiration in 1998 due to failings by the Media Bureau in its mailings to Pennington, and the alleged state of the information in CDBS. As the licensee of the station, Pennington should have been well aware of the finite term of his LPTV license and the requirement that he timely file a license renewal application, having filed the 1993 Renewal Application upon the initial expiration of the station license that year.”
