Golden City Appeal Denied by DC Circuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied broadcaster Chinese Voice of Golden City’s appeal of FCC rulings (see 2011250062) that it violated agency rules by operating a low-power FM station from an unauthorized location and then filing…
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an application to modify the license without disclosing that the station was already operating from the modified location. “Chinese Voice by its own admission broadcast from an unauthorized location more than two miles from its licensed site for about fifteen months,” wrote the three-judge panel of Nina Pillard, David Tatel and Robert Wilkins in an unpublished order released Tuesday in appeals docket 20-1514. Unauthorized transmissions don’t count as broadcast signals, the panel said. “Because Chinese Voice failed to transmit broadcast signals for a consecutive twelve-month period, it forfeited its license.” The FCC’s prior decisions to take Golden City’s license and require the broadcaster to disclose the violation in future applications were “reasonable and reasonably explained,” the court said. “Chinese Voice repeatedly obscured its purposeful fifteen-month relocation, including before this court,” the order said.