A belated License to Cover application filed by the owner of a low-power television station serving Key West, Fla., has yielded a proposed fine that’s bigger than similar occurrences. Why? Their extreme tardiness was singled out by the head of the FCC Media Bureau’s Video Division.
A $6,500 penalty has been written up by Barbara Kreisman‘s office and sent to Bleu 24 Communications, which owns WEYW-LP 19.
It’s a station with a signal covering the city of Key West, and one decade ago was involved in a “must-carry” complaint that failed to give the facility MVPD coverage across Monroe County. Then, Rick Bellizzi owned WEYW. In July 2020, Bleu 24 acquired the station; it went dark at the end of that month, with the licensee in April 2021 submitting paperwork with the Commission indicating it wished to move the LPTV facility to a new tower. It was granted by the Media Bureau within one day, with an expiration date of April 15, 2024.
On February 2024, a Letter of Inquiry was sent to Bleu 24, with a license renewal application for WEYW in hand. It wanted to know about the operational status of the low-power TV station, and didn’t get a response. This resulted in the automatic cancellation of the WEYW-LP license.
That caught Bleu’s attention, as it wanted the FCC to undo that action. Bleu provided evidence demonstrating that the station’s revised facilities were constructed and that operations commenced on July 18, 2021, 13 days prior to its one-year silent anniversary, and that WEYW-LP had continuously operated until it received the Cancellation Letter on April 5, 2024. Thus, it was simply tardy on that all-important application for a license to cover.
That’s never a good thing, which led Kreisman to consider financial penalties.
How did it arrive at the suggested fine amount?
“While in other cases we have fined other LPTV licensees $3,500 for similar violations, we believe an increased amount is warranted here given the lengthy period of time (over two years) the station engaged in unauthorized operation compared to those other cases,” Kreisman explained. “Stations are only permitted to commence operation pursuant to a valid instrument of authorization and we find the licensee’s failure represents extreme disregard, or at best ignorance, of Commission’s licensing processes and the [Communications] Act itself.”
