Well, actually you don’t…. if you run a radio station.
You need a reason “beyond your control” that caused the radio station to go off the air (hurricane, earthquake, involuntary bankruptcy, transmitter explosion, local NIMBYs got a judge to destroy your antenna). “I’m broke” is not a valid reason for being silent, but over the past year the FCC seems to be offering more campassion rather than forcing the cash deficient owner to sell the station in a bad market or surrender the license so someone else can use it.
Many of the applications to remain silent are just flat out lies. They blame a balky transmitter, or the power output being out of specs for 6 months -which are problems fixable with spending money and paying an engineer.
This reason however, you have to admire. It’s from an FM station in Arizona:
“THE LICNESEE IS STILL EXPERIENCING SEVERE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN ITS MARKET AND NEEDS ADDITIONAL TIME FOR THE PRESIDENT TO IMPROVE THE NATIONAL ECONOMY. IT WILL RESUME OPERATION BEFORE THE EXPIRATION OF ONE YEAR TO MEET STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS”
They’re not yelling on purpose – it’s just the FCC’s database was made in the 1970s and doesn’t support mixed case text.
