Reports from someone with Knoxville’s First Amendment Radio brings updated info on its situation: the “nastygram” was found around noon Thursday. Then for about an hour station volunteers played hide-and-seek with agents Eric Rice and Rickey Davis from the Atlanta District Field Office (photos available at the station’s web site). KFAR shut down and the agents went away.
First Amendment Radio stayed silent until 4pm Saturday when broadcasts resumed with a skeleton operation its volunteers are willing to risk if the FCC moves in the direction of a raid.
KFAR’s had at least one contact with the FCC prior to this one. The station recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency (objective unknown) and as of now is asking listeners to call, e-mail or write the agents in Atlanta asking them to cool it.
Also today, insideradio.com (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, thanks to some legal muscle and mud-throwing) bragged today about the silencing of an unlicensed broadcaster on 92.1 FM in Oklahoma City last week. The blurb, verbatim:
“Some ideas here you can steal? KVSP worked the streets to find the location of the pirate, and KOMA started streaming the pirate’s programming, so the FCC field agents down in Dallas could hear it.”
With Clear Channel already actively hunting pirates in Florida, one wonders if it will leverage its tentacles to make this a nationwide policy, which would definitely strike a fire under the FCC to up the pressure with its enforcement efforts.
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