The FCC today fined low-power Class A WPHA Philadelphia $89,200 for failure to open its door to FCC inspectors, fully staff its main studio and operate its transmitter from its authorized location. The FCC said its ability to conduct unannounced inspections is "essential to its responsibility to promote safety of life and property."
DMA 4
Comments (4)
Patrick Burns says:
March 31, 2016 at 5:04 pm
Another example of the FCC using rules that usually draw a 5 K fine to try and scrub the spectrum of more LPTVs.
The FCC is so warped in the spectrum auction that they let everything else languish. Whether it is AM revitalization.to
any number of items, it is pathetic.
Ironic part is we the broadcasters did not invent LPTV , the commission created it. So its on them that this mess is upon us.
The US I think is the only ,ajor nation where TV channels come in all power sizes and there is no such thing as LPTV of full power, its all just TV.
Wagner Pereira says:
March 31, 2016 at 7:26 pm
$5k for violations like this. You cannot produce ANY example of this amount of lying and fragrant violations that ended in a $5k fine. Sorry, you are not Donald Trump. Simply saying it does not make it true. They should have fined them $6.4M and still revoked the license.
Ellen Samrock says:
March 31, 2016 at 8:56 pm
The other issue here is that when agents arrived, they encountered a locked gate, hence no fully staffed main studio. So, there was no locally produced programming emanating from that station. It was basically a satellite receiver and an EAS endec (sadly, there are many Class A stations like that). And from the sound of it, had the agents been allowed access to WPHA’s main studio and the public files, more than likely, they would have found several files missing. No wonder the GM claimed illness whenever they showed up.
Ellen Samrock says:
March 31, 2016 at 6:27 pm
It’s bad luck to deny the FCC access to your station, not once but three times, as DTV did here. And how they can claim ignorance when told that their transmitter site was nearly a quarter mile away from their licensed coordinates strains credulity. The topper, though, is DTV sending the FCC the required paperwork to show why they couldn’t pay the 90K fine while neglecting to mention that the station was in the process of being sold to Locus Point for 6.4 million (and DTV had already filed Form 316 for WPHA with the Commission, so they knew about the pending sale anyway). This notice of forfeiture was highly entertaining reading. Gave me a real belly laugh. The puzzling thing is that this is one of Randy Weigner’s stations whom I’ve met socially. Seemed like a lot brighter guy in person then how he comes off in this notice. Just goes to show that it takes more than a handshake and a drink to really know someone.