[HCDX] Homer radio station owner finds vindication

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adn.com | kenai : Homer radio station owner finds vindicationHomer radio
station owner finds vindication

FCC: With help from Ted Stevens, Dave Becker wins a battle with the agency.

By TOM KIZZIA
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: August 15, 2005)

HOMER -- Radio station owner Dave Becker lost every step of the way as he
battled the Federal Communications Commission for a decade over the right to
send his FM signals to distant towns in Southcentral Alaska. But he's
walking away a winner, thanks to legal language slipped into last year's
appropriations bill by Sen. Ted Stevens.
The FCC has finally surrendered, citing special Becker-shaped provisions
signed into law by President Bush in December. In June, the FCC dismissed
its long-running case against Becker's Homer-based Peninsula Communications
Inc., whose soft-rock and country signals are streaming once again to Kenai,
Kodiak and Seward.
Becker is calling the resolution sweet vindication. He has argued all along
that the FCC's rules were tangled with contradictions that left him in a
no-win situation. Stevens' effort on his behalf merely brought sanity to the
rules, which were penalizing him for his pioneering broadcast efforts, he
said.
"It was to correct a wrong that was being perpetrated on me," Becker said.
"There was no longer any hope for fairness in the FCC."
But other Alaska broadcasters say the exception tailored by Stevens rewards
Becker for his years of defying the FCC and keeping his translators up.
Meanwhile, they say, it penalizes station owners who did what they were
supposed to, pulling the plug on translators once the FCC banned them here
after 1994.
"I guess if you defy, defy and get a legislative fix, you can do anything
you want," said Ric Schmidt, general manager of KNOM in Nome and president
of the Alaska Broadcasters Association. "The people who followed the
regulations are left out of the mix. Now they have no translators or
license, and nothing says they can get it back."
The broadcasters are soft-pedaling their criticism, however. They say
Stevens has been a big help to Alaska stations on many issues. They say they
are simply trying to win something for owners left out by the new law.
The main loser in the case appears to be John Davis, a conservative former
Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly member whose Kenai stations compete with
Becker's signals. When the FCC rules for Alaska changed in 1994, Davis shut
down the translator carrying his FM country station KWHQ into Homer. But
Becker chose to fight, continuing to beam his Homer signal into Kenai and
elsewhere -- even after the FCC ordered him to stop. Becker finally
unplugged in 2002 after losing in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Now Becker has resumed broadcasting to Kenai. But Davis, apparently, cannot
broadcast to Homer.
Davis said he thinks Stevens came to Becker's rescue, in part, because
Becker's wife, Eileen, is district chairwoman for the Republican Party.
Davis said he is "barely" part of the Republican Party himself, describing
his politics as libertarian.
A Stevens spokeswoman denied taking action because of party favors.
"The intent was to promote equity and fairness in broadcasting," Courtney
Schikora-Boone said. "This helps take radio broadcasts to communities that
won't have it."
Becker says it was no personal favor.
"If it hadn't been perfectly clear to Senator Stevens' office, he wouldn't
have lifted a finger," he said.
The dispute involves commercial FM radio stations in small-town Alaska.
Stations used to be able to use translators to send their signals to towns
outside their license areas. The idea was that in these lightly served
communities -- some of which had no stations at all -- having more radio
stations was a good thing.
That FCC rule changed nationally in 1990. The FCC decided the translators
were allowing stations to skim advertising revenue out of the distant towns,
making it hard for competitors to start up full-fledged radio stations based
in those towns. But the FCC continued to grant waivers, including some in
Alaska.
Becker claimed that his seven translator operations into Kodiak, Kenai,
Seward and Homer were allowed under a general Alaska exception to the
national rule. By 1994, however, the FCC declared any such exceptions
expired, and two years later said the new rules applied to Becker. His
competitors, including recently opened stations, had begun to file
complaints. The commission finally ordered PCI's translators off the air in
2001, but Becker kept them running another 15 months as he appealed to
federal court.
Becker argued that under the FCC's rules, any station off the air for 12
months would lose its license. If he shut down and his appeal lasted more
than a year, he could never get his stations back, even if he finally won,
he argued.
The appeals court upheld the FCC order. The translators finally blinked off,
and Becker's empire shrank to his license area -- Kenai for KPEN and Homer
for KWVV. Becker also runs two other Homer stations, KGTL and KXBA.
The FCC wasn't finished. As punishment for his "foolhardy miscalculation" in
refusing to follow an order, an FCC administrative law judge in 2003 ordered
two of Becker's four commercial licenses revoked. Judge Richard Sippel
called Becker's intransigence "a particularly cynical abuse of the fairness
shown by the Commission," contending that Becker was keeping up his towers
out of concern for his cash flow, not his principles.
Becker argued that he had made the investments in his translators when they
were legal and should be allowed to keep them. He said that the FCC was
trying to bully him for daring to fight back and that he had been pursuing
his legal rights to appeal.
There the matter stood, with Sippel's decision on appeal, translators shut
down and the prospect of lost licenses and $140,000 in fines hanging over
Becker's head, when Stevens stepped in last fall.
Stevens' appropriations rider reinstated any license revoked in a proceeding
in Alaska related to broadcasting by translator. It also clarified the
12-month rule, saying licenses may be restored if an appellant wins his
case.
The law did not make it legal to begin translating signals to distant towns
outside one's license area. The national prohibition remains in place. But
the new Stevens amendment, in somewhat ambiguous language, appears to say
that a station providing translator service to other towns in Alaska gets to
continue, without penalty.
That would be Peninsula Communications Inc.
"It's as close to a personal relief bill as I've ever seen," said Dennis
Bookey, general manager of Morris Communications radio, which includes
Anchorage stations KFQD and KWHL, among others. He is also part-owner of
Kodiak stations that compete with Becker's translated signals. "If you
obeyed the regulations, how would you ever be in that situation?"
Becker said the new law has the potential to help stations other than his
own. He cited two in Southeast now authorized to translate signals to other
towns. The law ensures that the FCC can't change its mind later and remove
their waivers, Becker said.
But he said it was doubtful that his competitor, Davis, could get permission
to translate his Kenai signal to Homer after letting his license go after
1994. Lawyers for Davis' stations are now studying the issue, an official
for those stations said.
"We find ourselves in limbo, with permission by law to broadcast but no
broadcast license from the FCC on our wall," KSRM general manager Cherie
Curry said.
An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment on the legal changes and their
application to Becker's case, saying it remains under consideration by the
commission. The five-page June order says interpretations of the new law's
language vary.
The intent of Congress was not obvious, the FCC said, because "there is no
legislative history of the relevant amendments."
Reporter Tom Kizzia can be reached at tkizzia@xxxxxxx or in Homer at
1-907-235-4244.






Copyright © 2005 The Anchorage Daily News (www.adn.com)



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