What’s worse than a public fine fine?

0

Pile of MoneyAnswer: A public file fine when it is discovered that your station has a prior for the exact same violation. That’s the case for a Kentucky station missing its issues/programs list.


The station is WEKC-AM Williamsburg KY, licensed to Gerald Parks.

An FCC inspection of the station revealed that it was did not have a single on of the quarterly lists for the entire term of its current license, encompassing 19 in all.

For the record, the FCC notes that the item is a “…list of programs that have provided the station’s most significant treatment of community issues during the preceding three month period…” Further, “The issues/programs lists must include “a brief narrative describing what issues were given significant treatment and the programming that provided this treatment,” including, but not limited to, the time, date, duration, and title of each program in which the issue was treated.”

The failure to have the lists in the station’s public file would normally result in a $10K fine. In this case however, the FCC noted that Parks was fined in 2005 for the same exact violation.

The result: a fine of $15K and reporting conditions, on penalty of perjury, that the violation has been corrected.

The proceeding is at the notice of apparent liability stage, meaning Parks still has an opportunity to appeal for a reduction or cancellation of the penalty.

Williamsburg is in unrated territory in the southeast section of Kentucky not too far from the Tennessee state line.