KSCO(AM) got a lump of coal from the FCC this December – not the kind of Christmas present the station was hoping for. This lump of coal came in the form of a $20,000 fine levied on December 14th.
A $20,000 fine for super-serving the public interest? The answer depends on who gets to say what’s in the public interest. The FCC won, and the station lost this argument.
KSCO(AM)’s directional nighttime signal only covered about a fourth of its market since over many years the population had grown in directions that KSCO(AM)’s signal didn’t cover well or at all after dark.
So, KSCO(AM)’s management had an idea how to better serve the population it was increasingly unable to serve. Stop being directional at night! With non-directional operation, albeit at lower power (1 KW) than the station’s licensed directional nighttime power, the market, Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay Area, CA, was much better covered, and, the station maintained, much better served.
So KSCO(AM) completely stopped going directional at night. That was a very convenient solution to a very real problem. But it brought on a new problem. The station never applied to modify its license for non-directional nighttime.
There were no reports of interference from other radio stations, so the stations figured all was well. Indeed, all seemed well, for a long time. In fact, the station enjoyed the better coverage of its market for something over 30 years.
Notice the phrase “no reports of interference from other radio stations.” There were, in fact, complaints of interference from members of the public, and in 2016 the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau warned the station that it needed to apply for an STA and then return to its licensed nighttime parameters or apply to modify the station’s license to “reflect the manner in which it had been operating,” which would, of course, have been non-directional at 1 KW at night.
And then it happened. The FCC found out that KSCO(AM) was still operating quite in violation of the terms of its license, which specified 10 KW non-directional daytime, and 5 KW directional at night. The FCC was not amused.
The station pleaded that it had a strong record of providing news and information that would not have otherwise been available to the population it served. The station also pointed out that there had been no reports of interference by other radio stations.
The FCC case file shows that the Commission twice notified the station that if it wished to operate with facilities other than those specified in its license it would have to apply for Special Temporary Authority (STA) to do so, and to apply for a modification of its license. The case file does not indicate that the station did either one.
And so KSCO(AM) will now help fund the government to the tune of $20,000.