Two Idaho radio stations will pay a total of $500,000 and have admitted violating federal law by airing a political program for more than a year without telling listeners that they’d been paid to do so.
BoiseDev reports Keep Idaho Red show, which ran on KIDO-AM Boise and KLIX-AM Twin Falls last year. The hour-long show featured former Idaho GOP Chair Tom Luna and former Ada County GOP Chair Victor Miller interviewing prominent Idaho Republicans and others. The show didn’t feature disclosures required by federal law and that the show wasn’t included in either station’s political disclosure file.
The FCC launched an investigation into the show.
“The investigation revealed that Townsquare failed to provide on-air sponsorship identification announcements for multiple episodes of, and numerous advertisements promoting, a paid-for political program that Townsquare broadcast over the Stations from October 2021 to March 2023,” FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer wrote in a filing this week. “The investigation further revealed that Townsquare failed over the same period of time to upload records of multiple episodes of the program featuring uses by legally qualified candidates for public office and communicating messages relating to political matters of national importance to the stations’ respective online political files.”
“The format of each episode nominally resembled a news interview/public affairs program produced and presented by the stations,” Saurer wrote. “In fact, however, all episodes of the Program were paid political presentations. Townsquare was paid to broadcast episodes of the Program and related advertisements initially by and on behalf of the Idaho Republican Party, and later by Tom Luna on behalf of a company doing business as Tom Luna and Associates.”
The agency said that a number of episodes of the show featured then-current candidates for office, but KIDO & KLIX didn’t note that in the public file. The agency outlined why it sees that as a problem.
“When broadcasters air paid-for programming without disclosing the program’s sponsor, they can mislead the public,” Saurer wrote.
In addition to the $500,000 fine, Townsquare Media agreed to “implement a comprehensive plan to ensure its future compliance with its sponsorship identification and online political file obligations, submit annual compliance reports to the Bureau through the remainder of the current license terms of the two stations.”
It will also launch a training program in disclosure rules for all of its more than 350 radio stations nationwide. In addition to KIDO and KLIX, New York-based Townsquare owns Boise’s Lite FM, Mix 106, Wow Country 104.3, 103.5 Kiss FM and Power 105.5, and Twin Falls’ Kool Super Hits 96.5, 98.5 The Snake and 95.7 KEZJ.
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