The FCC reached a consent decree with low-power TV station owner Lowcountry 34 Media, LLC, resolving an investigation into whether Lowcountry abused the FCC’s licensing processes.
Specifically, since September, the FCC had been investigating whether “Lowcountry engaged in an abuse of process through its filing of serial minor modification applications to construct and license temporary facilities with the intent of relocating certain low power television and TV translator stations’ substantial distances (greater than 30 miles and without contour overlap) from their originally authorized sites in circumvention of the Commission’s major modification.”
The process is commonly referred to as “hopping.”
FCC rules intend that stations be constructed to provide permanent service. However, according to the consent decree, there were at least 30 cases in which “the use of temporary equipment was employed in order to facilitate a series of repeated moves” and that some stations only operated for a matter of days before going silent and applying for a facility change.
Lowcountry’s business plan apparently was to utilize the Commission’s minor modification application process to relocate the facilities distances greater than 30 miles, without contour overlap, and never permanently operate them at the location specified in the construction permits it acquired from prior licensees and in some cases applied for itself. The Bureau believes that Lowcountry’s actions and filings amounted to an abuse of the Commission’s licensing processes and potential violation of section 74.787 of the Rules.
Consent decree between FCC Media Bureau and Lowcountry 34 Media, LLC
Lowcountry will pay a civil penalty of $250,000 and return dozens of licenses, including 13 in the Upper Midwest. The licenses to be returned include: K24KD-D (Salix, IA), K22OS-D (Brainerd, MN), K36QL-D (Hewitt, MN), K19NC-D (Rushmore, MN), K21PF-D (Sauk Centre, MN), K24OM-D (St. Cloud, MN), K23PT-D (Wells, MN), K34QZ-D (Wells, MN), K16NV-D (Bismarck, ND), K20OY-D (Horace, ND), K23PR-D (Valley City, ND), W06DL-D (Merrill, WI), and W35EA-D (Merrill, WI).
It is also selling dozens of other stations, while retaining some others.