KLSU + FCC Update

Last week we posted an article about KLSU, the student-run, school-supported radio station at LSU, and its recent $10,000 FCC fine for missing paperwork dating back 13 years. It’s really upsetting to see such a huge fine levied against KLSU, especially considering the recent budget cuts. We received some updates concerning this situation. For one, it seems that KLSU will seek a lesser penalty from the FCC. This will help alleviate the burden to the radio station. They’re also seeking mitigating funds from other student-run media outlets on campus. For example, they’re seeking some assistance from The Daily Reveille. Unfortunately, all these other media outlets got cut as well, so it’s unlikely they’ll find any sort of mitigation from them (The Daily Reveille alone got cut $30,000). We’ve also learned that they’re changing their documentation habits at KLSU to avoid this in the future. Apparently they’re now in verbose mode, documenting everything they can, where as before their documentation policy was fairly lax. We’ve also uncovered some of the FCC files for this situation. You can see their requests for documentation going back over a decade. (First PDF; Second PDF)

When we conducted our reader survey a few months ago, KLSU reigned as the most listened radio station in Baton Rouge, and KLSU is a historic tradition for LSU student-run media. As fellow independent local media, we hope that KLSU can clear this up and continue playing great music.

Thanks to Gregory Schultz of ControlAltTV for for filling in some of the missing pieces.