Fine day for Nassau Pennsylvania AM

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Every so often FCC field agents find a station with omissions in its public file – more often than not, the missing items are the standard programs/issues lists. But there were no such halfway measures at WPLY-AM Mount Pocono PA – it didn’t have a public file on hand at all, and that was just the beginning of its regulatory troubles.


The station is licensed to Nassau Broadcasting II, LLC, Debtor-in-Possession. It is currently silent.

FCC agents visited the station’s Stroudsburg PA main studio on 3/25/10, met with staffers, including the sales director and engineer and discovered that the station did not have a public file.

Moreover, according to the execs on hand, it never has maintained a file.

From the studio, the inspection moved on to the station’s tower site. It’s licensed to operate on 960 kHz with 1 kW-D and 24 W-N, with four-tower directional set-up.

However, it was using only one of the towers, meaning it was broadcasting a non-directional signal, and it was only broadcasting with 250 W.

The company maintaining the tower site said that this had been the case – operating with one tower at reduced power – for an eight year period.

The FCC took the base fines for each violation and used its discretionary power to bump them up a few notches. The public file fine moved from the standard $10K up to $12K, and the unauthorized operation fine moved from $4K to $5K, for a total of $17K. The station is also saddled with compliance reporting requirements on penalty of perjury.

Editors note: Article edited to correct WPLY facilities