There are advantages to being a Class A television rather than a straight LPTV, but along with the advantages come heightened responsibilities. Another Class A that hasn’t kept up with filing its children’s programming reports must now show cause why it should not be downgraded.
The station is W17CI Claremont NH, licensed to Convergence Entertainment and Communications.
As has been the case with many Class As, W17CI failed to file Form 398, detailing children’s programming on the station, for a number of quarters.
The FCC sent inquiries about the failure on 4/2/12 and 8/8/12, and Convergence responded to neither.
The licensee was informed that it had 30 days to show cause why it should not be downgraded from Class A to LPTV status.
RBR-TVBR observation: It has been speculated that the FCC crackdown on rule-negligent Class As is tied to the upcoming incentive auctions of spectrum in the television band.
There is never a good time to ignore FCC inquiries. Further, in the case of Class A television stations, there likely has never been a worse time to do that.
Convergence has already had two stations degraded: W19BR Monkton VT and WGMU-CA Burlington VT.
