Broadcaster in a fix

I'm in the middle of an equal time dilemma and wondering if any one has any ideas. My program director is currently the president of the local school board. He is running for reelection this fall. Two weeks ago I received a phone call from one of his opponents demanding equal time. Since my program director is on the air daily and we must go back 7 days from the initial request for equal time, I will owe his opponent over 600 minutes of air time. In addition his opponent told three other people that are running for the school board and now I will owe over 2500 minutes of air time to these four individuals. My program director has since resigned from the school board but the damage is done.

After talking with an FCC lawyer five different times it appears as though I have no choice but to give up the air time. I can't begin to express my outrage not only in the air time I must make available but the fact that my program director had to resign from the school board or we would have had to keep him off the air for almost three months. Having just three full-time on air people that would be almost impossible.

Does any one have any ideas on how to control the amount of air time that I must provide? Are there any loopholes that I'm not aware of or any other options that might be available?

Rick Siebert, Owner-KGMT-KUTT-KWBE, Beatrice, Nebraska

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