In January, the Commission upheld a Media Bureau decision to cancel the license of an AM radio station in Meridian, Miss., on the grounds that the disclosure to the Commission of the death of the station’s sole owner was botched.
A month later, two individuals involved with the station’s oversight following the owner’s passing filed a Petition for Reconsideration. On Monday, the FCC responded: Nope.
It’s another setback, and perhaps fatal one, for WNBN-AM in Meridian, Miss.
As of today, the station owned by the late Frank Rackley Jr. is now run by Eddie Rackley Jr. and Jimmie Hopson. They’ve been seeking a reversal of the Media Bureau order, but in the latest effort to win Commission support for their fight, the two were given a short and blunt explanation for the FCC “no” — the Petition for Reconsideration was “procedurally defective.”
As RBR+TVBR first reported, Eddie Rackley Jr. and Hopson on Oct. 1, 2019, filed an Application for Review seeking a Commission re-look at its denial of Eddie Rackley’s petition for reconsideration of the Media Bureau’s decision to deny WNBN’s license renewal.
Confused? Let’s just say it was round two in a three-round persuasion path that Eddie Rackley and Hopson sought to pave, which dates back more than eight years.
There was just one small problem: WNBN’s renewal didn’t occur because it wasn’t signed by the licensee. But, that was impossible: Frank Rackley Jr. was already deceased.
Unfortunately, Eddie Rackley Jr. didn’t tell the Commission of Frank’s death until the Feb. 10, 2012 license renewal application deadline for all Mississippi radio stations.
According to the Commission, Eddie, as “Administrator,” filed the renewal application for the station under the licensee’s name, without saying anything about Frank’s passing. There’s a problem with this, the Media Bureau ruled and the FCC upheld: Eddie Rackley Jr. signed the documents not as an “Administrator,” but as a purported “Officer” of the licensee.
As the Commission’s rules require the filing of an application for involuntary assignment of license with the FCC within thirty days of the date of death, this was impermissible.
Nearly six years later, on December 7, 2017, and almost seven years after he was
required to submit the application, Eddie Rackley Jr. filed the necessary Form 316 application for consent to the involuntary assignment of license for WNBN from the
licensee to himself.
In probate court, the station was sold to Hopson, for $10,000.
Things then got worse for Eddie Rackley Jr. On April 19, 2018, the Media Bureau granted the Assignment Application authorizing the assignment to him. However, Eddie Rackley Jr. never submitted a notice of consummation for the Assignment Application.
Additionally, the parties never took the steps needed to obtain FCC approval for Hopson to become the licensee of WNBN.
While the January 2020 decision seemingly wrote the end of WNBN as a licensed station, Eddie Rackley Jr. and Hopson insisted reconsideration was warranted because the FCC did not properly consider the Administrator’s initial lack of counsel; Hopson’s status as “an innocent party”; and the public interest benefits of entering into a consent decree.
That was rejected. Why? “A party may seek reconsideration of a Commission denial of an application for review only on the basis of either changed circumstances or newly-discovered facts. The Petition, however, does not allege any change in circumstances or offer any newly-discovered facts.”
The cancellation of WNBN was the final nail in the coffin of a facility that in 2008 was fined $1,500 for operating from the wrong coordinates and for failing to power down after sunset as required by FCC regulations.
An April 2008 RBR+TVBR report noted that Frank Rackley Jr. was aware that the station had strayed from its assigned coordinates and happened when a deal to set up a transmitter at the licensed coordinates fell through. As a result, Frank Rackley Jr. set up shop elsewhere in the area, avoiding the requirement to power down from 2.5 kW during the day to 330 watts after the sun is down. In fact, WNBN was habitually staying at 2.5 kW straight through to its 9PM sign-off.
The FCC initially assessed $8,000 in fines for the two uncontested infractions but lowered the financial penalty after reviewing Rackley’s finances.
