An application for an LPFM station in Rhode Island has been derailed because the applicant had listed a mailbox at an office supply store as its operating address.
Bump FM, a Providence non-profit that has been streaming gospel-formatted hip hop and rap from its website since 2018, sought to broadcast on 95.1 FM from Glocester. It applied for a CP during the December LPFM window.
But Bump FM listed a Smithfield address on Putnam Pike as where it would be operating from. The only problem? The address came back to a mailbox at a Staples office supply store.
Aaron Read, a longtime broadcast radio engineer and resident of Rhode Island, filed an informal objection pointing this out. FCC rules require an operating address to be a “campus” or “physical headquarters” within 10 miles of a proposed transmitter site.
Bump FM responded in February, updating its application to a location in North Smithfield that it said it had leased “out of an abundance of caution.” It told the FCC that the address on the original application was through office space with Staples’ Coworking program.
Read filed a reply saying that the Staples Coworking program is not available in any of the chain’s R.I. locations, which the commission confirmed. He said the the addresses for the officers and board members on Bump FM’s application were all in Providence, more than 10 miles from the proposed Glocester transmitter site.
In its ruling the commission now has declared that Bump FM does not qualify as “local.”
In a top 50 Nielsen market such as Providence-Warwick-Pawtucket, an LPFM applicant qualifies as a local entity if it can certify that it is physically headquartered within 10 miles of its transmitter and that 75% of its board members reside within the same radius.
Additionally, the commission could only trace the amended address to a lease date of Jan. 8, after the original application was filed and beyond the scope of a “minor change” that the Media Bureau would deem acceptable .
The commission said Read’s objection had established “substantial and material question of fact that grant of the application would be inconsistent with the public interest.”
As a result, Bump FM’s LPFM application was dismissed. Bump FM acknowledged the dismissal on its website and said that it will not be filing a petition for reconsideration.
