On an August day in 2010, an AM radio station licensed to Greenville, R.I., near Providence, was noted as silent. Eventually, on April 1, 2014, the station’s license expired and the facility’s call letters were deleted by the FCC. This put an end to a Class B with 50kw daytime watts and 5kw at night at 990 kHz.
Tell that to Quilvio Perdomo, who expressed interest in reviving the long-dead station in May 2022 and wrote to the FCC about reinstating the station’s license so he could buy it.
What did the Commission do?
Perdomo is associated with the Radio Sharon Foundation, which five years ago was active in Rhode Island as the operator of Tropical “Mega 94.9” on a pair of FM translators using broadcasts from WSTL-AM 1220.
Earlier this year, he filed an Application for Review requesting that the FCC reinstate the expired license of what was WALE-AM, formerly licensed to Cumbre Communications.
Once the reinstating of the expired license was completed, Perdomo through his Perdomo Media Group would then seek to gain FCC approval to acquire the former WALE.
Alternatively, Perdomo asked that the Commission open an auction, in which Perdomo could bid for the 990 kHz frequency and return a broadcast facility to Providence on that signal.
What did Media Bureau Audio Division Chief Al Shuldiner have to say about the rather unusual request? It was “procedurally defective.”
The biggest problem for Perdomo? The deadline for filing an application for review of the FCC’s decision to cancel WALE’s license was 30 days after the issuance of the Public Notice notifying the world of the Commission’s action. That was on May 12, 2014.
Shuldiner commented, “Perdomo filed the AFR eight years after the deadline, on May 24, 2022. Therefore, we dismiss the AFR as untimely.”
What about an auction?
“If the Commission announces a future AM auction filing window, Perdomo may then request that the station’s former frequency be included in that auction, and file an application for that frequency during the window.”
