The FCC has fined the licensee of noncommercial KMTP San Francisco (DMA 6), the Minority TV Project, $20,000 for repeatedly failing to place in the station’s electronic public file (e-pif) required public file documents; not disclosing its failure in its license renewal application.
On Jan. 31, 2014, the Minority TV Project filed the station’s license renewal application. Shortly after filing, a staff review of the station’s e-pif revealed that the licensee had failed to timely place in its e-pif copies of its donor lists for the entire prior license term and TV issues/programs lists from first quarter of 2007 through first quarter of 2016.
After being contacted by FCC staff, the licensee uploaded all missing TV issues/programs lists in December of 2015. In May 2016, FCC staff discovered that Minority TV Project had failed to upload its TV issues/program list for the first quarter of 2016 and also not placed a copy of copies of its most recent donor lists into the station’s e-pif.
Staff again requested that all missing public file documents be uploaded to the station’s e-pif and an amendment to its license renewal application be filed disclosing its public file violations. Minority TV Project complied with these staff requests by uploading missing public file documents in May 2016.
On June 6, 2016, the licensee amended its license renewal application, stating that while copies of its TV issues/programs lists were not uploaded to its e-pif in a timely manner “all lists were prepared and placed in the stations physical public file in a timely manner and were available for inspection by the public as required.
The FCC said that the licensee again failed to timely upload copies of its quarterly TV issues/programs lists for second, third and fourth quarters of 2016 and has not provided any explanation in its pending license renewal application for these continued violations.
