If you missed it in the SN&R..here is the story about them shutting down..
It seemed like only a matter of time before KNOZ 96.5 met its demise. The only question for two years, while the micro-power station operated without a license out of a rented storefront on 16th Street, was how and when the end would come. Would the feds come busting through the windows? Or would they slip in through the back door? Would station owner William Major be quickly hauled off to jail, his broadcast equipment seized, for repeated violations? Or would he endure, a renegade on the airwaves, for years?
The finale, it turned out, was anticlimactic. There wasn’t a battle, only emotional resignation, when KNOZ went off the air in late September. Though KNOZ endured at least one complaint, along with visits from Federal Communications Commission agents and two $10,000 fines, Major and his partners decided in July to end operations after running out of money.
“Basically, we didn’t get shut down by the FCC. The overhead was too high,” Major said, stating that KNOZ was nonprofit with a $100,000 annual cost. The lack of a license couldn’t have helped either.
“We totally sympathize with them,” said Pete Tridish, director of Prometheus Radio Project and an advocate of low-power FM radio. “If they followed the rules, they would never get on the air, because that’s just the way it is right now.”
In a bleak corporate-radio landscape, KNOZ stood out. With a three-mile broadcasting radius downtown, it began in June 2004, playing only Northern California hip-hop, keeping acts like Mac Dre and Keak Da Sneak in regular rotation months before they conquered commercial radio.
Now, where once there was a station banner and a neon sign that glowed “On-Air,” there sits a darkened and empty storefront. “It was a very, very sad day,” Major said. “It wasn’t even a funeral. It felt more like being lost at sea.”
An FCC spokesperson refused comment, saying any pending case could not be discussed, though Jeff Shaw, station director for KDRT 101.5 FM, the only low-power station in Davis and one of two in the area, speculated that KNOZ was a “victim of competitive commercial interests.”
It’s not that KNOZ’s signal was encroaching on anyone. “The impression I got is they were selling commercial airtime, so I’m not surprised other stations took notice,” Shaw said of KNOZ.
Larry Lemanski, the station manager for hip-hop counterpart KBMB 103.5 FM, had told SN&R last year that his station filed an FCC complaint about KNOZ (see “Everybody KNOZ,” SN&R News, January 20, 2005.) He refused to comment for this story.
The FCC began to target Major in January of 2005, telling Major he was unlicensed and needed to shut down. On June 29, 2005, the FCC slapped Major with a $10,000 forfeiture notice. June 2006 brought another fine.
But Major said he submitted a low-power-broadcasting application, in June of 2004, before he went on the air. No filings by KNOZ are recorded on www.fccinfo.com. But there is an application from Eastern Sierra, a Reno-based outfit, to build a translator station for 96.5, which would carry out-of-town programming. Eastern Sierra operates a translator that carries religious broadcasting in the Reno area. Company president Chris Kidd told SN&R he didn’t know what the format would be for the Sacramento station.
Todd Urick is a KDVS 90.3 FM engineer who runs Common Frequency, a nonprofit working with Prometheus to help citizens petition the FCC for low-power licenses.
“If there’s a group of people that want to start a radio station and can serve a community with local programming, they should be allowed the opportunity to at least apply and start a station,” Urick said “I think it’s a First Amendment right to free speech.”
But Shane Carpenter of Access Sacramento said he told KNOZ it was operating illegally the time he visited the station. Carpenter had been recruited to help raise the station’s tower height, but he refused. “They’re pirates and they deserve to go off the air,” said Carpenter, who added that he never complained to the FCC.
Though technically a pirate, Major never operated clandestinely. Bob Borelli, a regular in Cardenas Cigars, which is in the same lot where KNOZ was, said Major made the rounds every morning, saying hello. “That’s one guy that cared about the community,” Borelli said.
Major put on a charity basketball tournament at CSUS in the fall of 2004, and organized a Christmas toy-drive at the station.
National artists knew of KNOZ, and Major said Oakland rapper Too Short would stop by whenever he was in Sacramento. JT the Bigga Figga, who recently toured with Snoop Dogg, credited Major with helping popularize “hyphy” music by playing it before it was popular.
“That them was my people right there,” the Bigga Figga told SN&R,
Major also helped untested acts. Musicians could pay to have articles written about them in his publication, (916) Magazine, which helped defray station costs. The artists’ music was spun for free, regardless of whether they bought an article, and Major let many local artists deejay. All that’s been heard on 96.5 lately is soft rock faintly bleeding over from KOIT in San Francisco. That’s the sound of nobody breaking the law.
It seemed like only a matter of time before KNOZ 96.5 met its demise. The only question for two years, while the micro-power station operated without a license out of a rented storefront on 16th Street, was how and when the end would come. Would the feds come busting through the windows? Or would they slip in through the back door? Would station owner William Major be quickly hauled off to jail, his broadcast equipment seized, for repeated violations? Or would he endure, a renegade on the airwaves, for years?
The finale, it turned out, was anticlimactic. There wasn’t a battle, only emotional resignation, when KNOZ went off the air in late September. Though KNOZ endured at least one complaint, along with visits from Federal Communications Commission agents and two $10,000 fines, Major and his partners decided in July to end operations after running out of money.
“Basically, we didn’t get shut down by the FCC. The overhead was too high,” Major said, stating that KNOZ was nonprofit with a $100,000 annual cost. The lack of a license couldn’t have helped either.
“We totally sympathize with them,” said Pete Tridish, director of Prometheus Radio Project and an advocate of low-power FM radio. “If they followed the rules, they would never get on the air, because that’s just the way it is right now.”
In a bleak corporate-radio landscape, KNOZ stood out. With a three-mile broadcasting radius downtown, it began in June 2004, playing only Northern California hip-hop, keeping acts like Mac Dre and Keak Da Sneak in regular rotation months before they conquered commercial radio.
Now, where once there was a station banner and a neon sign that glowed “On-Air,” there sits a darkened and empty storefront. “It was a very, very sad day,” Major said. “It wasn’t even a funeral. It felt more like being lost at sea.”
An FCC spokesperson refused comment, saying any pending case could not be discussed, though Jeff Shaw, station director for KDRT 101.5 FM, the only low-power station in Davis and one of two in the area, speculated that KNOZ was a “victim of competitive commercial interests.”
It’s not that KNOZ’s signal was encroaching on anyone. “The impression I got is they were selling commercial airtime, so I’m not surprised other stations took notice,” Shaw said of KNOZ.
Larry Lemanski, the station manager for hip-hop counterpart KBMB 103.5 FM, had told SN&R last year that his station filed an FCC complaint about KNOZ (see “Everybody KNOZ,” SN&R News, January 20, 2005.) He refused to comment for this story.
The FCC began to target Major in January of 2005, telling Major he was unlicensed and needed to shut down. On June 29, 2005, the FCC slapped Major with a $10,000 forfeiture notice. June 2006 brought another fine.
But Major said he submitted a low-power-broadcasting application, in June of 2004, before he went on the air. No filings by KNOZ are recorded on www.fccinfo.com. But there is an application from Eastern Sierra, a Reno-based outfit, to build a translator station for 96.5, which would carry out-of-town programming. Eastern Sierra operates a translator that carries religious broadcasting in the Reno area. Company president Chris Kidd told SN&R he didn’t know what the format would be for the Sacramento station.
Todd Urick is a KDVS 90.3 FM engineer who runs Common Frequency, a nonprofit working with Prometheus to help citizens petition the FCC for low-power licenses.
“If there’s a group of people that want to start a radio station and can serve a community with local programming, they should be allowed the opportunity to at least apply and start a station,” Urick said “I think it’s a First Amendment right to free speech.”
But Shane Carpenter of Access Sacramento said he told KNOZ it was operating illegally the time he visited the station. Carpenter had been recruited to help raise the station’s tower height, but he refused. “They’re pirates and they deserve to go off the air,” said Carpenter, who added that he never complained to the FCC.
Though technically a pirate, Major never operated clandestinely. Bob Borelli, a regular in Cardenas Cigars, which is in the same lot where KNOZ was, said Major made the rounds every morning, saying hello. “That’s one guy that cared about the community,” Borelli said.
Major put on a charity basketball tournament at CSUS in the fall of 2004, and organized a Christmas toy-drive at the station.
National artists knew of KNOZ, and Major said Oakland rapper Too Short would stop by whenever he was in Sacramento. JT the Bigga Figga, who recently toured with Snoop Dogg, credited Major with helping popularize “hyphy” music by playing it before it was popular.
“That them was my people right there,” the Bigga Figga told SN&R,
Major also helped untested acts. Musicians could pay to have articles written about them in his publication, (916) Magazine, which helped defray station costs. The artists’ music was spun for free, regardless of whether they bought an article, and Major let many local artists deejay. All that’s been heard on 96.5 lately is soft rock faintly bleeding over from KOIT in San Francisco. That’s the sound of nobody breaking the law.
