Media Bureau Blocks NCE Application Over Misrepresented Ownership

Stebbins family as officers, but didn’t list John and Peter Stebbins, two brothers whose company 305 Community Radio was the target of a 2019 FCC investigation over operating an LPFM at an unauthorized location. In connection with that investigation, the Media Bureau required any future applications from the Stebbins brothers for the next five years to include disclosures about that investigation. The KWR application didn’t include those disclosures and didn’t name the brothers as officers of the company, but John Stebbins was listed as an officer in filings with the state of Florida in 2021 and 2022. KWR argued the listings with Florida were a mistake and the brothers aren’t officers, but the Media Bureau was unpersuaded, the letter said. The Bureau "will not allow an applicant to ‘simply disavow its duly adopted corporate articles and Bylaws, claiming extra-legal considerations, in order to avoid adverse legal consequences,” the letter said. The bureau was informed of KWR’s leadership structure in a petition to deny from Frequency Zero, another, mutually exclusive applicant for the same NCE license as KWR. With KWR out of the running, Frequency Zero is now a tentative selectee to receive a license, the letter said. The disclosure requirement for 305 Community Radio was increased to ten years, and future applications from 305 now must include disclosure of this application incident along with the 2019 information, the letter said