Re: Change of ownership

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 01:18 AM 2/20/2003 -0500, Garrett Wollman wrote:
><<On Thu, 20 Feb 2003 01:07:01 -0500, "A. Joseph Ross" 
><lawyer@attorneyross.com> said:
>
> > Something just occurred to me.  If I own a radio station, do I need
> > FCC permission to die, whereupon ownership and control of the
> > station would pass to my estate?
>
>No.  But your executor with respect to the broadcast license(s), must
>be qualified to control a license in the usual manner, and obviously
>the same must be true of any person you wish to inherit the license.
>I forget which form it is, but the FCC has a special form for
>``involuntary transfer of control'', used in the case of death,
>incapacity, foreclosure, and bankruptcy.
>
>-GAWollman


Just FYI - for Mr. Ross's case it'd be transfer of assignment...not 
necessarily control.   It's a very legal technicality.   Assignment means 
you're changing the ownership of the FCC license only.  Control means 
you're selling the company that holds the license and the license is part 
of the sale, and therefore technically has new owners even if the sold 
company remains the same name.

Control issues are pretty meaningless at the small-scale level but when we 
had mega-mergers going on left and right in the late 1990's that sort of 
thing was a lot more relevant.

At least, I THINK that's how it all works...I'm not a lawyer, but I did 
read into this crap pretty thoroughly not long ago when I had to fill out 
WZBC's minor change application (when we replaced their antenna and had to 
change the TPO).  I decided to bone up on a lot of AM/FM forms.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA