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  2. March 2017

March 2017

Entercom settles with media watchdog over license dispute

Entercom, the PA-based radio broadcasting company that owned KDND-FM (107.9 The End), will settle with a media watchdog group that had threatened to appeal the licenses of its other Sacramento stations. 107.9 The End was embroiled in controversy when the station sponsored a contest in 2007 called, “Hold Your Wee for a Wii,” resulting in the death of Jennifer Lea Strange, 28, from water intoxication. Her family eventually won a $16.6 million award during a jury trial, and media watchdogs petitioned the Federal Communications Commission seeking to deny the station’s license renewal. In Feb, Entercom announced it would voluntarily surrender the radio station’s license as part of a planned merger with CBS Corp.’s CBS Radio.

FCC Reaffirms Cultural Programming Can Fill Educational Bill

The Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai has struck a blow for cultural programming. The FCC has denied a complaint by Beasley Broadcast Group against a Tampa (FL) noncommercial low-power FM station for airing an all-music lineup when it promised a range of educational and cultural programming when it applied for the license. But the FCC did find it had aired one ad and the station's owner, Hispanic Arts, agreed in a consent decree to pay a $2,000 fine.

Beasley, which owns seven stations in Tampa, most of them all-music formats, alleged the licensee had violated the terms of its license and the FCC should review its status. In its construction permit for the station, WVVF-LP, filed in November 2013, Hispanic Arts had contended that its mission was "promoting the rich history and culture of Hispanics in the Tampa Bay area" through a variety of broadcast programs, including poetry, cultural programs, news and weather, live broadcasts of local events, community calendar, history, interviews politics, discussion, and music programming."

FBI investigation continues into 'odd' computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization

Apparently, federal investigators and computer scientists continue to examine whether there was a computer server connection between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. Questions about the possible connection were widely dismissed four months ago. But the FBI's investigation remains open, apparently, and is in the hands of the FBI's counterintelligence team -- the same one looking into Russia's suspected interference in the 2016 election.

One US official said investigators find the server relationship "odd" and are not ignoring it. But the official said there is still more work for the FBI to do. Investigators have not yet determined whether a connection would be significant. The server issue surfaced again this weekend, mentioned in a Breitbart article that, according to a White House official, sparked President Trump's series of tweets accusing investigators of tapping his phone. CNN is told there was no Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on the server.

Today in Media History: Edward R. Murrow investigated Joe McCarthy on ‘See It Now’

On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow and his CBS news program, “See It Now,” examined Senator Joseph McCarthy's record and anti-communist methods.The program is often remembered for these words: "This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

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