While putting the No. 1 song this week in 1965 — Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” — in heavy rotation may alienate audience, true silence will attract the attention of the FCC. That’s the case in the matter of an AM radio station in Oklahoma licensed to Michigan-based Sima Birach.
Birach’s station was dark for extended periods of time during its prior license period. Now, the FCC has spoken: It is granting a license renewal, but for a much-curtailed time-frame.
As such, KJMU-AM in Sand Springs, Okla., will remain a Birach Broadcasting Corp.-owned station. Purchased in November 2007, KJMU is licensed to serve the Tulsa market.
At present, it is operating under a shortened one-year license term — a decision the FCC made due to the prior prolonged silence. Now, the Commission is giving Birach another one-year license for KJMU, with an expiry date of December 22, 2024. The renewal application will be due no later than August 1, 2024.
Considering the Commission is again granting just a 12-month license extension to Birach, KJMU’s operation will undoubtedly come under heightened scrutiny at the FCC.
In a letter sent to Birach on Friday (12/22), Audio Division Chief Albert Shuldiner explained that, if at the end of this one-year license renewal period, the Commission finds that Birach has again fallen short of that which would warrant routine license renewal, or if it failed to restore KJMU to unlimited operation at the power levels specified in its license, then the Commission would either place on a condition on the grant of its next license renewal or issue a Hearing Designation Order.
What prompted a second shortened license renewal for KJMU? It was silent from January 8-May 24, 2023. Why? The transmitter was malfunctioning, Birach told the FCC.
There’s more. When KJMU resumed operations, it only did so at 25% of its licensed daytime power and did not resume nighttime broadcasts. This lasted until July 20, and failed to fall under a Special Temporary Authority authorization that continues to today.
