South Florida Public Media Group rebuts objections to station deal

South Florida Public Media Group is pushing back against an attempt by WLRN’s school board licensee to block its acquisition of an FM station in Palm Beach County. 

South Florida Public Media Group, which manages WLRN in Miami, is seeking FCC approval for its proposed $6.45 million purchase of The Flame 104.7 in West Palm Beach. Its request to transfer the commercial license was filed June 6 with the FCC. 

But on July 9, the School Board of Miami-Dade County, WLRN’s licensee, petitioned the commission to block reassignment of the license from the seller, JDD Radio, to SFPMG. 

In its FCC filing Monday, SFPMG called the school board’s petition “nothing more than an effort to lure the Commission into a private disagreement in which the School Board is erroneously asserting a claim to SFPMG’s assets.”

SFPMG CEO John LaBonia previously told Current that the nonprofit would finance the purchase internally with income from a spectrum lease that’s been in place since 2008. 

The school board asserted in its petition that SFPMG has no independent sources of funding other than revenues from WLRN donors and from “the lease of EBS frequencies, which are part of the endowment for WLRN, and are not available for unrelated activities.” 

But in Monday’s filing, SFPMG said it is the FCC licensee for the Educational Broadband Service license WHR866 and leases the spectrum to Clearwire Spectrum Holdings II LLC. 

“The School Board is not the licensee of WHR866, and the School Board is not a party to the EBS leasing arrangement between SFPMG and Clearwire,” the filing said. 

“Simply put, the School Board has no claim to the revenue derived from the WHR866 EBS lease and any assertion otherwise by the School Board is, at most, a private business dispute wholly outside the Commission’s jurisdiction.” 

SFPMG also challenged the board’s assertion that the station it wants to buy would compete with WLRN, which serves the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market. The new station is in the West Palm Beach market, it stated in the new filing.

SFPMG, founded in 1974 as Friends of WLRN, has managed the dual-licensee under a contract with the school board since 2022. 

In its petition to deny the proposed license transfer, the school board said it plans to seek an audit of SFPMG’s use of WLRN funds in “anticipation of possible litigation.” 

“Notwithstanding the potential issues raised by this competitive acquisition by Buyer, regarding breach of contract and fiduciary obligations as manager and fundraiser for WLRN, any use of the WLRN endowment or WLRN donor-raised funds would constitute a misappropriation of funds,” the School Board’s petition to deny said.