FCC Eases Forfeiture Policy for Student-Run Station Violations
The FCC Media Bureau eased its policy on public file violations at student-run stations. In a consent decree Monday with William Penn University in Iowa, the bureau tailored its enforcement policies toward student-run stations in the context of their educational mission, it said in a policy statement and order (http://bit.ly/17mmJeX). Last year, WPU filed a license renewal application for KIGC(FM) Oskaloosa, Iowa, but filed a number of reports after the due date, the bureau said. Instead of receiving a notice of apparent liability, the university was directed to make a $2,500 voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury, the bureau said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The bureau has the discretion to take into account the educational mission of student-run stations, “their reliance on inexperienced volunteers and the unique benefits these stations provide, both to their student staffs and their communities of license,” said the order. As colleges and universities are seeking ways to reduce expenditures, “some have decided to sell their [non-commercial educational] NCE stations,” the bureau said: “We are very concerned that the imposition of forfeitures in the amount otherwise called for by the [Communications] Act, the rules and pertinent precedent may accelerate this trend.”
Under the new policy, instead of issuing an NAL, the bureau will first afford the licensee an opportunity to negotiate a consent decree “in which the licensee agrees to a compliance plan and makes a voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury,” it said. It applies to student-run station licensees with first-time violations of certain documentation requirements, said the order. The commission isn’t departing from the concept that each licensee “is responsible for the actions of its station’s staff,” it said. However, in the particular context of student-run NCE stations, allowing a forfeiture reduction for first-time documentation violation in exchange for a consent decree that includes a compliance plan, “will promote rather than undermine compliance with the rules,” it added.
The policy change shows that the FCC recognizes that student-run stations are different and should be treated differently from commercial stations on fining them for violations, said John Crigler, a broadcast attorney at Garvey Schubert who previously expressed concern for the impact of FCC fines on such stations (CD Aug 13 p3). He often represents public stations. “They typically have small budgets and limited faculty oversight and the commission realizes that there’s no point in treating them harshly."
The policy change helps student-run stations, said radio station lawyer David Oxenford of Wilkinson Barker, who represents WPU. The base fine to WPU would have been $20,000, the bureau said. Under normal circumstances, the fine would have been much higher, and “we agreed to $2,500,” said Oxenford. “There were other fines in other cases where the fines have been extremely high.” There were a lot of complaints about that generally, he said. “It’s a very important step in the right direction to making these fines for noncommercial student-run stations a bit more reasonable by taking into account the circumstances of these stations."
But “the ruling is pretty narrow,” Crigler said. The policy is limited to the roughly 500 student-run stations out of about 3,800 noncommercial FM stations, he said. It also applies to violations of requirements concerning documentation, but not technical or indecency violations, Crigler added.