Earlier this year we discussed the FCC's new authority under the so-called PIRATE Act to go after landlords of pirate broadcasters. In his weekly NorthEast Radio Watch newsletter, my friend Scott Fybush reports today:
The FCC’s effort to crack down on pirate operators by going after their landlords took a new turn last week when 16 property owners in New York and New Jersey received notices from the Commission warning them that unlicensed signals were coming from their locations, subjecting them to the possibility of fines as high as $2 million if the broadcasts continued. The list included stations in Brooklyn on 91.9, 95.9, 97.5, 98.9, 99.7, 100.7 and 107.9, in the Bronx on 88.9 and 101.7, in St. Albans, Queens on 88.5, in Newark on 87.9, in Irvington on 88.5 and 90.9, in Maplewood on 90.7, in Orange on 102.1 and in Paterson on 99.3.
No indication yet as to whether this aggressive approach is actually having an effect. The law requires the FCC's Enforcement Bureau to make an annual list of the pirate-broadcasting hotspots and report to Congress on its enforcement efforts there.
-GAWollman