order released Friday<\/a> that after reviewing the record and the parties\u2019 responses to its inquiries, \u201csubstantial and material questions of fact\u201d still exist regarding whether the parties have engaged in an unauthorized transfer of control, as well as whether they misrepresented the facts.<\/p>\nThe FCC says a programming-and-sales arrangement wasn\u2019t disclosed up front. The Bureau says did not appear in the transfer filings, but instead surfaced during the its investigation, when station staff said that another entity, Pro Radio, was programming the airtime and selling the advertising on the stations. The Bureau says it was also given conflicting information about timing \u2014 saying the response asserted Pro Radio began programming in November 2021, while other evidence suggests Pro Radio was not formed in Texas until August 2022.<\/p>\n
Toscano and her two sisters own Pro Radio, according to the FCC. When it inquired about the programming arrangement, they were told it was \u201cunwritten\u201d with the three sisters telling the Bureau they weren\u2019t aware the agreement needed to be in the stations\u2019 public inspection files. The order says the Bureau asked them to put the agreement to writing and provide it, but they failed to deliver.<\/p>\n
The order also highlights a significant debt relationship and family connections between Rygaard and Toscano \u2014 who are said to be cousins \u2014 although it concedes not everything is clear, since proper documentation was never submitted. The Bureau says Toscano already holds the right to collect a significant outstanding debt owed by Rygaard. Its order also flags unusual sequencing in the deal as it relates to debt financing. The FCC says \u201cit is not clear\u201d whether Rygaard has made any payments to Toscano during her ownership of the company, what the outstanding balance is on the loan, what security, if any, has been provided for the loan, and how exactly the funds were used by the stations. The Bureau says the women\u2019s\u2019 responses left key questions unanswered.<\/p>\n
The order repeatedly faults Rygaard and Toscano submissions for gaps, contradictions, and what it characterizes as weak support for assertions about who controlled station operations. It describes their later response as lacking documentation substantiating Rygaard\u2019s actual control over the stations and demonstrating her independence from her employment by Pro Radio. Ultimately, it says the responses \u201creinforced the Bureau\u2019s view that an unauthorized transfer of control to Toscano, a foreign national, had already occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FCC has set the matter for a hearing before an administrative law judge and laid out the issues to be tried, including whether the transfer applications should be approved \u2014 or the licenses be revoked. Procedurally, the order requires written appearances within the next 20 days for both Rygaard and Toscano. It also warns that if Toscano fails to file the required appearance, her purchase applications will be dismissed \u2014 with no opportunity to try again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Communications Commissions is raising the possibility of revoking the licenses of three Texas stations after it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,11671,223],"class_list":{"0":"post-138229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-el-paso","9":"tag-el-paso-headlines","10":"tag-el-paso-news","11":"tag-free","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}