Kentucky broadcast owner Morgan County Industries has agreed to adopt a compliance plan to avoid trouble with FCC rules. The agreement also will allow it to proceed to sell the stations in question.
Morgan owns WLKS-FM in West Liberty, WRLV-FM in Salyersville, WCBJ(FM) in Campton, and WMOR-FM in Morehead. It wants to sell them to Ridgeline Communications Inc.
But the FCC Media Bureau has found that the stations’ license renewals in 2020 were not filed until a month late. The next year, it said, Morgan County Industries failed to obtain special temporary authority for these stations to be off the air for more than 30 days, and it didn’t obtain special temporary authority for one of them to operate at reduced power for an extended period.
Further, issues/programs lists were missing from the online public files or not uploaded on time. Also, a local programming and marketing agreement related to three of the stations was missing from the OPIFs; and certain certifications in the renewal applications were incorrect.
The company has agreed to a three-year compliance plan with the FCC that will be binding on the new ownership.
The FCC said Morgan County Industries has since uploaded the majority of the missing lists, uploaded its local programming and marketing agreement with Hindman Broadcasting Corp. for three of the stations, and amended the renewal applications.
The commission said it plans to grant the renewal applications and the assignment application.
The FCC also had received an informal objection to the renewal of one of these licenses, but the commission found no rule violations that warranted denying license renewal.
The Media Bureau did add that had these licenses not been pending ownership change, the violations could have warranted a shorter-term renewal. “Accordingly, any grant of the renewal applications will be conditioned upon consummation of the proposed assignment to assignee.”
