radiodxrichmond said:
WOW! That got a station's license revoked back then??? I think nowadays if the same standards applied, half the radio stations in major markets would be stripped of a license! I can think of several stunts in the past 20 years that would have qualified!
Yes, all the contests of that kind (saying a DJ was somewhere he was not) got stations in trouble. Walton's Tucson station lost its license in the same era.
"Rigged" contests were something the FCC reviewed very seriously. A lot depended on the licensee's response... couple bad behaviour with other infractions.
"KIKX became one of the
few stations to have its license permanently revoked due to a broadcast
hoax. A similar case involving WMJX-FM in Miami closely followed the
KIKX incident. After being admonished by the FCC in 1973 for engaging
in fraudulent contests,90 the station broadcast a series of news reports
stating that disc jockey Greg Austin was lost in the Bermuda Triangle. The
reports continued after station personnel were aware of Austin’s safe
landing on the Florida coast. However, the station’s news reporter was
instructed to keep running the story of the disappearance in order to promote the “Find Greg Austin Contest.”
Administrative Law Judge Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, the same judge
who revoked the license of KIKX, presided over the license renewal
hearing of WMJX. Once again, Judge Fitzpatrick refused to renew the
license in light of the station’s misconduct."
(Federal Communications Law Journal, February, 2000)
WMJX had previously been admonished by the Commission for lesser issues, and the ALJ felt that management knew of the deception and had sanctioned it, placing their fitness in question. Other hoaxes like one at WCCC in Hartford which reported the eruption of a volcano near Waterbury and a station in the Phoenix market that reported being taken over by Indians were not so severely handled as the stations "fessed up" and showed that one-time events were not part of station practices and the licensees.
