Making Your

New Years Resolution for 2001

By Ken and Kelly Orchard

It has been a year of visiting stations and assisting sole proprietors and group ownerships with their FCC Compliance Issues. Many times, we hear comments like, "Oh, our lawyers take care of all that for us." Or, the one that seems fitting for the majority of manager’s is, "We have already been seen by the FCC, and everything is okay." Even more often is the standard response, "The FCC has deregulated everything, and they’ll never inspect us anyway," or, "I’ll take my chances."

It’s actually just as common when making our own "sales" calls to get the standard objections to the services offered by Orchard Media Services. That is to be expected. I completely understand the reasons they would elect to avoid another annoying call from someone who has services to offer. As a former owner of radio stations myself, I also had to train my sales staffs how to overcome these standard objections when they made their sales calls to sell advertising. This is nothing new to me.

However, as a result of a complaint from a disgruntled employee, community organization or creditor, a petition to deny, a licensee’s failure to file some required information, or a random decision by FCC Enforcement Bureau, a station can receive an unannounced inspection by the FCC and your license is in jeopardy or you are subject to fines not to mention more headache than you need.

Such investigations or inspections may include any thing from a review of the station’s "Public Inspection File" to an evaluation of the performance of a station’s transmitter, and everything in between.

Now that the holidays are over and our new President has been chosen, stations can expect random inspections to start again for 2001.

"The Chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau recently reminded all licensees that a renewed rule-enforcement effort that has been undertaken in the last 12 months and that the FCC fully intends to continue the aggressive effort." Harry Martin, BE Radio, December 2000, pg. 30.

This comment by an expert in FCC Enforcement reinforces what we have been writing here in Radio Shopper for a year now.

Martin continues, "…the Chief of the new Enforcement Bureau (David Solomon) restated that violators will be subject to "serious" consequences and that enforcement will be speedy."

Readers to voice their own opinions about what is happening to our industry often use the Orchard Media Services email address. When we first started submitting these articles, we knew we tended to be on our proverbial "soap box", and wondered if anyone was paying attention. Readers are, and we are please at such responses.

One reader wrote, "Starting some years back, I started seeing too many station managers/owners suffering from "selective amnesia."  They would be told certain things that needed to be done in order to be in FCC compliance, or things that needed to be done in order to keep the station on the air in a reliable fashion.  Of course, if these recommendations cost money, or were "inconvenient," they were promptly forgotten.  I would go back and revisit many of these recommendations.  I was met with indifference, or "what are you talking about?"  If a memo to the fact was shown them, they would then begrudgingly admit to having knowledge of the fact, but still did nothing."

This same reader went on to write: "Given the lack of responsibility, honesty and integrity I have seen in the last few years, plus all the extreme bottom lining, I have gotten very spooked (about being a contract engineer).  We now live in a very litigious society where far too many are looking for an opportunity to make a quick buck, or save their own butts by passing the buck to someone else.  Lawyers do what lawyers do best.  Sue everyone in sight.  Absent a written contract, when (trouble arise) who is to say exactly WHAT the engineer was responsible for.  Ken, honestly, I don't feel good about taking this position.  I am old enough to remember when honesty, integrity and a man's word meant something.  However, in the present climate, you play the game and cover your butt every step of the way.  If not, you can find yourself in a very bad situation you had no control over.  Sad state of affairs, isn't it?"

Yes, it is a sad state of affairs when long time broadcasters are ashamed of the direction our industry has gone. Ignorance is not to be considered the best way to avoid operating a broadcast facility under the requirements set forth by the Federal Communications Commission.

Truthfully, I would hope that this rumor that the "dummy" corporation can feign ignorance and the FCC would allow them to avoid paying their fines for such serious violations, more investigation will be needed in this matter.

I don’t always agree when the FCC agrees to lower a fine for a violation, but I do relate to their desire to show leniency for first time offenders. But, if the violation continues, the FCC isn’t going to let it slide a second time. They have reiterated that numerous times to violators.
We were contacted to do several TV stations as the New Year started plus some more AM-FM stations that want to make sure they are in full compliance. At the close of 2000, Orchard Media Services has been contracted through the California Broadcaster’s Association to perform Alternative Broadcast Inspections. We are pleased with our new arrangement with the CBA, and will write about our findings in future articles.

We will be visiting stations that request this service, and assist them in becoming fully compliant with FCC Regulations. Once it is determined that they are in compliance, the State Broadcast Association will issue them a certificate, send one on to the FCC, and the FCC will not inspect that station for a period of two years.

Its time for broadcasters to make a New Years Resolution for 2001. As our industry continues to evolve into this corporate world of consolidation, we need to keep up with the standards that give us the right to broadcast. You cannot be a quality broadcaster and claim ignorance when it suits you. Your attorney’s can only do so much for you.

Corporations cannot be allowed to claim "ignorance of FCC Rules" and get away with it. They shouldn’t be allowed in this industry then. Would we continue to go to a restaurant that ignored standard public health rules? I don’t think so.

One of the questions that I ask a manager on my marketing calls is: "If you had to describe in one word describe the condition of your Public File, what would it be?" If that word is not impeccable then you may quite possibly have trouble on the very near horizon.

License renewal periods differ from state to state, but time is running out. Soon all stations will be faced with a renewal of their license to broadcast. Are you going to have all the proper documentation to fulfill the requirements necessary to submit your application to the FCC in its entirety? Has your station been properly serving the community of license?

You see after years of neglect in maintaining your Public File, it can’t be corrected by wiggling your nose like on the old TV show "Bewitched". It takes time and effort. Some times it’ll take several weeks just to locate the missing documents for your file and organize it. So, if impeccable is not the word you use to describe the state of your public file, trouble is ahead.

Based on the work required to assist stations that have ignored or neglected their Public Files and general FCC Compliance, Orchard Media Services can only work with so many stations in a one-year period. Over the years, we have developed a large clientele, and some of our services include annual maintenance of your file, where we will visit your station quarterly and place in the file the documents necessary for that period.

One of the benefits of this is that the incredible turn over in the broadcast industry has become such a burden on management and ownership. Once an employee is trained, they don’t necessarily stay in that position or with the company for the long term, so it benefits the station to outsource their compliance requirements to a company like Orchard Media Services.

One excuse that I received from a manager was: "I would love to have somebody as qualified as you come and organize my Public Files but the its not on the budget." I suppose I should respond with, "I wonder if the FCC fine is on the budget?" Perhaps I would get a different reaction!

Orchard Media Services prides ourselves on doing a great job working with many AM-FM-TV stations now in 7 states. We enjoy our work tremendously. We also appreciate the opportunity to correspond with our readers, who obviously feel the same way we do.

FCC fine, the station’s legal bill to clear up the matter was an additional $30,000. Another station in the northeast spent over $100,000 in legal fees fighting a "Petition to Deny". I wonder if that was in the budget.

So each month we inform you about changes and requirements that broadcasters need to be aware of. We can also tell you that the new Bush Administration will begin making some more changes to the broadcast industry. We don’t know what they are, but things will change.

Once again, to let you know that as we start this New Year, Orchard Media Services has become the inspection team for the California Broadcaster’s Association. About 40 states across the nation have come up with an FCC inspection program in cooperation with the state that you are located. That Broadcast association, upon receiving a fee and application for inspection will go to your station and inspect it. If your station is perfect, then your only fee was for that inspection and you will receive from that State Broadcast Association a certificate that your station complies and the FCC will be notified and you will not receive an inspection from the FCC for 2 years. If that State inspector finds something wrong and gives you a list of possible problems, then you will have to find somebody to fix these problems, or do it yourself.

Orchard Media can perform that work. If your station is in California we can not only do the inspection and the work and issue you the two-year "get of jail card" as some stations call it. We will be working with many in 2001, as the interest in this service is very huge among broadcasters.

Our New Years Resolution was to assist as many stations as we could to get compliant with FCC Regulations, and help make the overall operations of their licenses a breeze. What will your New Year’s Resolution be?