Has the FCC finally decided to get tough with the buccaneers of broadcasting that have littered the FM airwaves in three major East Coast markets for years?
A series of notices of unlicensed operation issued last week, and made public on Monday (5/22), suggest a sea change is finally underway at the Commission.
In the Bronx section of New York City, Sean Marshall of neighboring Mt. Vernon, N.Y., was handed an official Notice of Unlicensed Operation for operating an unlicensed station at 98.9 MHz.
That’s a bit of an issue, as it is a first-adjacency to Emmis-owned WEPN-FM 98.7, the market’s home for ESPN Radio. Marshall on April 18 admitted to N.Y. office Enforcement Bureau field agents that Marshall was the operator of the pirate radio station. He acknowledged that he had no authorization to operate the unlicensed station.
But, he’s not reacted and this results in the “NUO,” ordering him to immediately pull the plug.
Field agents from the Enforcement Bureau’s Gotham office then traveled across the Hudson River to suburban East Orange, N.J.
There, it found Benjamin Klein was the alleged operator of an unlicensed station at 94.3 MHz; the closest licensed stations on that frequency are WJLK-FM in Asbury Park, N.J., and an LPFM — WSBP-FM in Wood Ridge, N.J. That facility is just 9 miles from 115 Halstead Street in East Orange.
Klein looks like he had two accomplices: Steve Marks and George Fontan were issued identical NUOs to that sent to Klein.
The sharing of NUOs with the public is a fairly recent development, and could be a sign that the Commission — thanks to the efforts of Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly — is getting more aggressive in squelching unlicensed FM operators.
Some 15 years after South Florida’s radio dial became littered with pirate operators, new ones pop up nearly as quickly as others are fined and their signals are finally silenced. In the Boston and New York markets, pirate broadcasters are also more prolific than ever.
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