It pays to have good faith

Informed on 2/20/07 of a hole in the fence around the tower for KRAE-AM Cheyenne WY, owned by Brahmin Broadcasting Corporation, the staff felt pretty good. It had just repaired a hole in the fence, and assumed the warning, which came from the station's former owner, had been dealt with. But when FCC field agents visited the site on 3/6/07, they found an entire segment of the six-foot tall wooden barrier was down. Brahmin fixed it that very same day. It just wasn't soon enough to avoid a 7K fine for the infraction.

But wait. Since the company thought it had indeed fixed the fence just before the FCC inspection, constituting a good faith effort to comply with the rules, the FCC granted a 1.4K reduction to 5.6K. And the company's overall good faith record of compliance inspired the FCC to grant another 1.4K reduction, down to 4.2K.

RBR/TVBR observation: It's not every day that a little candor can help 2.8K from disappearing from your bank account. There are few things that tick off the FCC more than a lack of candor. It's good to know that the Commission is equally prepared to reward it in cases such as this.

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