Group Delivers Petition To Deny the Broadcast License of KGAN Channel 2

Group Delivers Petition To Deny the Broadcast License of KGAN Channel 2

Neat local organization that got rolling back at Swift Boat time. Channel 2 has run notoriously bad, consistently conservative editorials for years at the direction of corporate HQ.

Aside, and not relevant, they also have the worst signal of any station I've ever dealt with. Seriously. My daughter lived within sight of the towers on the north side of Cedar Rapids for a while and you could barely get the station.

Anyway, since it's not on their web site yet, here's the whole press release.

Iowans for Better Local Television to hold broadcaster to a higher standard of service

Iowans for Better Local Television (IBLTV) are gathering at the offices of KGAN-TV to deliver a copy of their Petition to Deny the License Renewal to Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The petition requests that KGAN-TV Channel 2’s application for license renewal not be granted until a public hearing is held to ascertain whether the broadcaster has met the “statutory public interest” standard.

Television station licenses are granted by the FCC for an eight year term. The deadline for Iowa television stations to apply for license renewal was October 1, 2005. The public has until December 30, 2005 to file petitions to deny these renewals, or informal comments to the FCC. Thus, it will be another eight years before citizens have a chance to examine the performance of their local stations. According to IBLTV Co-Chair Trish Nelson, KGAN and its corporate owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, have failed to meet the FCC’s programming and management standards required of all television license holders.

The petition states that KGAN owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, appears to have lied to the FCC, violates the FCC’s ownership rules, has a technically inadequate signal, fails to meet standards for children’s programming and does not do an adequate job of reporting local issues.

“Filing a license challenge against a broadcaster is an enormous effort,” Nelson said. “We’ve met to work on the petition twice a month for the past year; we’ve visited KGAN nearly a dozen times; we’re recorded, watched and analyzed hundreds of hours of KGAN programming; we’ve read hundreds of public comments; many of us have even taken vacation time from our jobs to complete the project by the FCC’s deadline.”

In the coming months the FCC will review IBLTV’s license challenge and report back its findings to the group. “If the FCC is ever going to deny a television station license renewal, this is the case,” IBLTV member Arron Wings said. “Sinclair, honored by Business Week as one of the worst managed companies in the country, manages to increase profits, while its revenues decrease, by engaging in joint operating agreements, cutting staff, and totally ignoring its statutory and moral obligations to the community. If the FCC won’t deny a license renewal for one of the worst television stations, and worst broadcasting companies in the United States, perhaps there ought to be a congressional hearing on the FCC’s performance as well.”