The Chief of the FCC Media Bureau’s Audio Division has moved forward with sizable fine handed in August 2023 to the licensee of a Louisiana FM translator which was found to have constructed and operated from an unauthorized antenna for approximately two months.
This licensee was also found to have falsely certified to construction of the LPFM as authorized, “but without an intent to deceive.”
Crocodile Broadcasting Corp. must pay a $12,500 forfeiture for its actions, Al Shuldiner ruled on Tuesday (1/3). However, the Commission is eliminating a reporting requirement it originally proposed.
Crocodile is the licensee of KGLA-AM in Norco, La., a longtime Hispanic-targeted station serving Latinos in greater New Orleans. In April 2018, as part of the FCC’s “AM revitalization” efforts, Crocodile applied for a permit to construct an FM translator to rebroadcast KGLA.
When Crocodile filed its license application on August 30, 2019, it certified that it had constructed as authorized and responded “yes” that it was using a properly-oriented directional antenna. This was proven to be false, after Radio & Investments petitioned the Commission to reconsider its grant of the license for the FM translator, W234DH — formerly of Norco and now licensed to Baton Rouge.
R&I’s petition was late-filed. However, its allegations raised “significant concerns” about Crocodile’s truthfulness to the Commission.
Crocodile, in response to R&I’s claims, acknowledged temporary use of an omnidirectional
antenna for approximately two months ending on October 24, 2019. Why? The authorized directional antenna arrived damaged in August 2019 and, because Crocodile was eager to commence operations and believed it would receive the repaired antenna shortly, decided in the interim to share an existing omnidirectional antenna at the same site.
The constructed facilities operated at a much lower power level than authorized, apparently in order to minimize the potential for interference from use of an omnidirectional antenna.
In its defense, contended that it had no intent to deceive, but simply did not recognize the
significance of the antenna substitution and, thus, did not mention it to counsel who prepared the license application. Shuldiner acknowledged this. “Upon reviewing the record, we find that there is no evidence of deceptive intent and, thus, no misrepresentation or lack of candor,” he said.
Now, Ernesto Schweikert III, Ernesto Alejandro Schweikert, and any entity in which any of them holds an interest in the FM translator must prepare to pay the fine.
