WGBN pays FCC fines as it expands programming

Pat Cloonan of the McKeesport Daily News (not available online) reported Tuesday that the FCC issued a $5000 fine to WGBN’s licensee Pentecostal Temple Development Corporation after an inspection two years ago. The company is affiliated with the Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ in East Liberty where The Rev. Loran Mann is pastor. Mann told Cloonan last week that the fine is being paid and the issues are receiving attention. “It teaches you to run your house better. We were a little lax on things so we made the corrections,” he said. It was discovered that WGBN (1150) failed to maintain a year’s worth of files on issues and programming as well as operating at reduced power on one tower instead of two. The station was also running it’s studio-to-transmitter link on an unauthorized frequency – not the one on the license. The station had failed to get a special temporary authority from the commission after one of the towers was damaged in a storm and had to be dismantled. Mann said he expects that the station will be back to full power in the next couple of weeks pending scheduling with the tower maintenance company.

Meanwhile, WGBN is working on installing a receiver to get programming from Sheridan Broadcasting’s American Urban Radio Network. It will help to fill some of the gap vacated when WAMO left the air.