Reply To: What happened to Jewish Radio In Flabush??

While there has been no formal announcement, your speculation is most likely correct with respect to why your favorite “pirate” heimeshe stations are off the air. For those who don’t follow the arcane rules, the FCC is required under the Federal Communications Act to protect the integrity and “property rights” of licensees holding broadcast rights over certain frequencies. When Trump appointed Ajit Pai as chairman of the FCC, Pai promised to take more aggressive action to eliminate pirate stations and has sought to increase the fines imposed for violators. The problem is that as transmission equipment has become cheaper and more sophisticated there were a proliferation of pirate stations operating, in major urban markets focused on ethnic listeners who were not served by commercial stations. In the NYC metro area, the frequencies between
87 and 92 FM have been especially “crowded” with at times nearly a dozen pirate stations operating with hosts speaking in Creole (Hatian), Yiddish, Hebrew ( and several other languages. For example, the Kol HaShalom broadcasts in Hebrew on FM 88.7 were periodically blocking out the signal from Long Island’s WRHU which had complained that its broadcasts on the Island barely were audible (except on Shabbos) over the hum of KolHashalom.
If you want to know for certain, file a FOIA request with the FCC regarding any enforcement action they have recently taken.