The Most Frequent FCC Violations, And How To Avoid Them

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One of the most frequent inquiries received by RBR+TVBR featured columnist Ken Benner is the following question, “What are the most frequent violations found during the inspections you conduct?” For those who have attended his compliance seminars, a 28-page summary of his program is handed out. It is from one of those booklets that this column is derived.


By Ken Benner

The following stats are derived from over 500 alternative inspections conducted with my wife and I. Thus, it gives broadcasters a reasonably good picture of the items most frequently found as at least somewhat non-compliant.

In over 95% of these items, we were able to either correct on site or provide a simple route for the station to correct almost any item without substantial legal expenses.

Are we practicing law? No … We are practicing common sense.

Generally, this simply involves leading the managers or engineers to the appropriate regulation(s) or referring them to a nearby engineer experienced in the item(s) of concern, such as an out-of-tolerance AM directional pattern, an NRSC-II band-width compliance verification, tower painting firms, etc.

All tolled, we were able to save licensees millions of dollars in unnecessary expenses over the past 22 years of inspections.

These figures are reasonably good estimates of the total percentages of items found in serious or questionable compliance and thus obviously are not intended to total 100%:

  • Public Files: 35% include missing issue and program reports, STL and RPU licenses, Political documentation, updated ownership reports, updated edition of Public and Broadcasting, EEO filings, updated ownership reports, etc.
  • EAS: 17% include missing logs, inoperative encoding or decoding, proper receivers or stations monitored, weekly review of logs, etc.
  • Logs: 23% involve tower lighting failures with notification to the FAA, quarterly tower inspections, Chief operators weekly log review, etc.
  • Proper transmitter power output: 8% — Refer to CFR 73.1560, station license, and

Be sure you understand direct vs. indirect measurements (Such is more involved than we have space here, so do the research on your own. It’s all in CFR Part 73) and/or the FCC self-inspection checklists.

What else is there to discuss?

  • Tower Registration: 2-5%
    Tower registration does not match the form 854R certificate, this is why we carried GPS meters! One TV tower we found over 70 miles from its licensed coordinates due to a typographical error on its 854R! Also, it is essential to correct the tower ownership on the 854R, failure of which has cost more than one station being substantially fined following its sale to a new owner.
  • Monitor Point Tolerance: 22-31%
    Directional AM stations must be able to prove their radiation pattern is within the tolerances as stated on it’s license. The overwhelming number of field intensity meters we observed were found with corroded batteries, grossly out of calibration, missing directions to locate the station’s monitor points etc.

One little punk-kid, weasel “engineer” tried to bluff Ol’ Dad here by locating places where his field intensities were “within tolerance” until I used my GPS to determine his misplaced locations were clearly not legitimate monitor points by simply entering his station’s tower coordinates. I found the distances were nowhere near the “points” where he claimed we were taking measurements. The kid had a rather difficult time explaining his station’s inspection failure to his manager.

Ah, yes … It’s been a fun ride these past 22+ years during which we have encountered the very best, and the very worst.

We have learned a lot about the fun and games of a great and gratifying career in the wonderful world of broadcasting.

But, most importantly, we have learned how radio stations get penalized financially, and therefore know the best ways to avoid writing a sizable check to the U.S. government.

This story originally appeared July 20, 2017 in RBR+TVBR’s Media Information Bureau


Ken Benner is an independent Alternative FCC Compliance Certification Inspector and a research analyst for the Coalition for Transparency, Clarification and Simplification of Regulations pertaining to American Broadcasting. Benner has more than 55 years of experience providing service to the broadcast industry.