Romanik stations fined $49k ...

From Tom Taylor:

Entertainment Media Trust owns four AMs in the St. Louis metro and somebody filed a complaint about the way they’re being run. 13 months ago (April 20, 2010), FCC agents from the Chicago office dropped in on the two studios used by EMT, one in Belleville, Illinois and one in De Soto, Missouri. They found public file violations at both sites – complete failure to maintain a public file in one case. At the other site, there were missing items, including failure to include public comments made to the station’s website.

The public file violations combined for $38,000 worth of fines. Then the agents stuck around to do field measurements for the 6:30pm pattern change at 5-kw fulltime KZQZ, St. Louis (1430). They discovered “no change in the field strength” and deduced that it was violating the terms of its license. Entertainment Media Trust, whose trustee is Dennis Watkins, also had measurement problems back to 2009.

Altogether, that’s another $11,000 in fines, making the total $49,000 – a very large check to be writing out.

Not only that, KZQZ has a construction permit to raise daytime power from 5,000 watts to 50,000 watts, and no doubt the FCC will be scrutinizing the results of those engineering tests very carefully. The Belleville, Illinois-run stations are WQQX, East St. Louis, IL (1490) and WQQW, Highland, IL (1510). The De Soto combo is KZQZ, St. Louis (1430) and KQQZ, De Soto (1190).

You have to understand that the money behind these stations is from the fat, fat wallet of Bob Romanik, a strip club owner from the East Side.  Romanik is a former police officer who served prison time as a felon and is thus prohibited by law from licensed ownership of a radio station. Romanik told me once on the phone that he took the fall for an area judge, denying his guilt of all of the charges for which he was imprisoned.

The name on the FCC license is actually Romanik's son, also an East Side police officer who has not yet been convicted of anything and the whole group is represented by an attorney, listed on the license as a Trustee.  His name is Dennis Watkins.

IMHO, the RICO act should be engaged and all of these creeps should be tossed out and the licenses put up for sale. It's just a very shabby deal.

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