What’s the ultimate penalty for failing to pay delinquent regulatory fees owed to the FCC?
Just ask Bravo Broadcasting Co. for the answer. It’s just lost the license for its Class B AM serving Spanish-language evangelical audiences across the Rio Grande Valley.
A four-page revocation order was sent to Bravo on Tuesday (11/21) by FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Sauer and Managing Director Mark Stephens signaling the dismissal of renewal applications filed in July 2021 and in March 2023 for KIRT-AM 1580, licensed to Mission, Tex.
The AM, licensed for 1kw during daylight hours and 302 watts at night, failed to timely pay or only partially paid its regulatory fees for fiscal years 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
On March 15, the Media Bureau and the Office of Managing Director jointly issued an Order to Pay or to Show Cause requiring Bravo to file with the Bureau within 60 calendar days evidence of full payment of the debt, or show why they should be waived or deferred. If that did not happen, a license revocation would be the penalty.
Bravo did not pay up, nor did it respond to the FCC’s Order.
As such, KIRT’s license is revoked. But, that doesn’t mean Bravo is off the hook for the past-due regulatory fees. The now-former licensee still needs to pay up.
Meanwhile, any operation of KIRT is now considered unauthorized, and must cease immediately; the KIRT call letters are hereby deleted.
It’s a sad ending to an AM station in an era where the AM Radio in Every Vehicle act is the biggest legislative mission of the NAB, working on behalf of such companies as iHeartRadio, which has millions of dollars in revenue at stake should its stable of AMs not be immediately accessible without an FM HD multicast or streaming option.
While KIRT of late was airing a non-secular Spanish-language format as “La Radical,” it was also the home of Mexico-based Radio Imagen in the Rio Grande Valley at a earlier point in its recent history. KIRT debuted in 1958 as one of the nation’s first Spanish-language radio stations, owned at first by Robert F. Pool Sr. and Jr.