A promise to pay within a week turned into another broken deadline, and now a Montana FM has lost its license entirely. The FCC has revoked KBOQ in Lima, MT, after owner Southwest Montana Media failed to settle more than $6,700 in delinquent regulatory fees.
That $6,754.80 debt spans fiscal years 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, and covers not just KBOQ but two former SMM properties, KANA-AM in Anaconda, MT, whose license the company surrendered in 2023, and a construction permit for translator K264CZ in Butte, which was later cancelled. The FCC says surrendering those authorizations did not erase the fee debt tied to them.
Regulators first warned the company in an April 24 order giving it 60 days to pay the debt or explain why it should be waived.
When that deadline passed without payment, Commission staff followed up directly with owner Ted Austin by email in July. Austin replied that he would pay the balance within a week, according to the order. He did not, and after a second extension and a final written warning later that month, the debt remained unpaid.
The Commission’s September 1 order terminates all authority to operate KBOQ, deletes its call sign, and dismisses the station’s pending license renewal application. Any continued operation of the facility is now unauthorized.
The FCC has revoked at least four station licenses for unpaid regulatory fees last year alone, part of a sustained push by the Commission to collect fee debt even from stations that have already gone dark.
