Seizure Part of Increase in FCC Enforcement, Broadcasters Say
Broadcast industry officials see the recent seizure of a pirate radio operator’s equipment as a positive sign that the FCC is increasing its enforcement efforts against unlicensed operators (see 1803280049), but the existence of the pirate stations can be a reaction to a lack of diversity and localism in radio, a person affiliated with one of the stations involved in the seizure told us. The listeners of pirate station Big City FM won’t start listening to other Boston-area stations now that Big City is shut down, because those licensed stations don’t offer diverse or local voices, the unlicensed-affiliated person said. “I understand the need for diversity, but there’s other ways to provide that rather than stepping on [the Emergency Alert System],” said Massachusetts Broadcasters Association Executive Director Jordan Walton in an interview.
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The equipment seizure is the most recent development in what Walton and broadcast attorneys said has been a major increase in anti-pirate enforcement, compared to previous FCCs. “The past 18 months have seen a major uptick in pirate radio enforcement actions by the FCC across the country,” said Pillsbury Winthrop attorneys Scott Flick, Joseph Cohen and Warren Kessler in a blog post. Many broadcasters are “hopeful” the commission is moving toward “real progress” against unlicensed radio operators, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post. “The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau continues to lead a multi-market effort to crack down on this illegal activity, which has resulted in unlawful broadcasters going off the air, seizure of equipment, fines against pirate operators, and numerous other enforcement actions,” an FCC spokesman said. The FCC didn’t say if the commission will take further actions on the unlicensed operations involved in the seizure.
Oxenford and Flick pointed toward possible congressional action on increasing the penalties for unlicensed operation as another positive sign for broadcasters. Increased penalties may make seizures more attractive to U.S. Attorneys, Oxenford said. “I have had experience where clients have identified long-term pirate operations to Federal authorities who, because of the press of other business, have been slow to obtain seizure orders and coordinate the actual seizure of a pirate’s equipment.”
Big City FM had a professional-looking website, advertisers and on-air appearances by local politicians, industry officials said. “It was the prototypical pirate station” that the Massachusetts Broadcasters Association would use to try to educate legislators about the issue, Walton said. FCC investigators first sent out warnings about Big City’s unlicensed operations in 2007, and the station cropped up numerous times before its equipment was seized, said a complaint (in Pacer) filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, unsealed Wednesday. The complaint describes repeated conversations between the station’s alleged operator Richard Clouden and Enforcement Bureau staff, a $10,000 forfeiture order that was ignored and eventually sent to the U.S. Treasury Department for collection, and numerous ignored notices of unlicensed operation. A seizure at least physically prevents a pirate from continuing to broadcast, while notices are often simply thrown away, Walton said.
Arguments that a pirate radio station endangers the public by preventing them from receiving EAS alerts and public safety information are “asinine,” the pirate radio person said. Since Big City and stations like it had a strong connection to the local community, listeners called in to spread the word of local emergencies, the source said. Some large licensed stations in Boston have on-air personalities based out of New York, while the stations in the complaints featured “real Bostonians,” the source said.