Chair Brendan Carr said last week that the Federal Communications Commission would use the license renewal process to enforce its public interest obligation rules. His comments came amid a discussion about several Disney television stations, but Carr said radio would also be under the microscope. That has quickly led to a move by the FCC, which has escalated its enforcement action against SPB’s “Awesome AM 980” WABG Greenwood, MS. The Media Bureau has cut the station’s license renewal to just one year after finding new rule violations that occurred days after a settlement with the agency.

The FCC agreed to renew WABG’s license as part of a consent decree that resolved the violations, including an unauthorized transfer of control and false statements to the agency. As Inside Radio reported last month, the deal also imposed compliance obligations. It required SPB to implement a compliance plan, including appointing a compliance officer, adopt internal procedures, conduct staff training tied to FCC rules, and pay a $1,000 fine. The FCC also agreed to renew the station’s license as part of the agreement.

But the Media Bureau alleges the station failed to upload a required quarterly issues/programs list to its online public inspection file by the April 10 deadline included in the consent decree —less than 10 days after the FCC approved the agreement resolving earlier compliance failures stemming from a 2015 ownership change. Because the lapse occurred after the April 1 consent decree, the Bureau treated it as a new violation, outside the scope of the earlier settlement. That allowed regulators to revisit the license renewal decision and modify their prior order.

“It is clear to us that the licensee’s conduct has fallen far short of the standard of compliance… that would warrant routine license renewal,” the Bureau said, pointing to what it described as a continuing “pattern of noncompliance” with the public file rule.

The FCC also elevated the significance of the violations, concluding they are “serious” under the Communications Act because missing issues/programs lists limit both public oversight and the Bureau’s ability to evaluate whether a station is serving its community.

As a result of the new violation — coming almost immediately after that settlement — the Bureau now says the station’s compliance failures, taken together, constitute a pattern of abuse over multiple years, including conduct spanning more than a full license term.

“We conclude that a short-term license renewal is the appropriate sanction,” Audio Division Chief Albert Shuldiner writes in the order.

Even so, the FCC stopped short of designating the renewal for hearing or denying the application outright. Instead, it opted for a short-term renewal, limiting WABG’s next license term to just one year.

The abbreviated term gives regulators an opportunity to revisit the station’s performance in the near term and determine whether further action is warranted. “This limited renewal period will afford the Commission an opportunity to review the station’s compliance,” Shuldiner writes, “and to take whatever corrective actions, if any, that may be warranted at that time.”

Critics have accused the FCC of swaying to partisan politics in the Disney case, but the WABG penalty pushes in the other direction. For broadcasters, the decision also underscores the FCC’s continued focus on online public file compliance — particularly issues/programs lists, which the agency views as a core measure of whether stations are meeting their public interest obligations. Carr told reporters last week that he sees the license renewal progress as a mechanism for “holding broadcasters accountable.”