Radio students at Fullerton College have lost their privilege to broadcast live on 90.1 FM as the license for the school’s operated station, KBPK, was canceled by the Federal Communications Commision on Aug. 9, at the request of the Buena Park School District governing board.

After holding the license for about 51 years, The BPSD governing board sent a statement to the FCC that announced they are asking to shut down 90.1 FM KBPK’s license to broadcast, which was run in collaboration with Fullerton College and its radio program.

Fullerton College Journalism department coordinator Jay Seidel, claimed the decision was made due to budget redirecting. “Basically what happened with the Buena Park School District is that they just looked at their budget and were like, we’re just going to end it [and] give back the FCC license,” Seidel said.

The Hornet reached out to BPSD Chief Operation Officer Michael Magboo, but received no response by the time of this publication.

Former radio program student and KBPK sports director from 1980 to 1984 Steve Hassler was surprised over the shut down of live radio. He claims the station was important for broadcasting Fullerton College sports teams in action. “Radio is so important to communities, because it is free and easily accessible,” said Hassler. “Where else could you hear Fullerton College football or baseball?”

KBPK alumnus Angela Aguilar showed disappointment over the issue, expressing that the new generations will miss the experience KBPK brought to her when she was a student. “This generation at Fullerton College will not get the chance to listen to their colleagues by catching the station, by turning the dial back and forth, or moving the antenna to receive grainy, staticky but familiar voices over the radio airwaves,” Aguilar said.

KBPK’s broadcasting license was approved and awarded to the BPSD in 1970 by the FCC, to give Calder Junior High School students the chance to train their broadcasting skills.

In 1972, in collaboration with the school district, Fullerton College received part of the broadcasting time, starting the new radio program at the college.

By 1978, Fullerton College started broadcasting full time on KBPK as the BPSD no longer had sufficient funds to support their time on the air. Since then, Fullerton College radio students who enrolled in the “Radio Workshop” classes or CRTV, were allowed to be on the air with all kinds of content. From broadcasting news, to interviews and even to live sports from the college as Hassler mentioned.

The main purpose of the station, as written by alumni Diana Kelly in a published article covering the 50th anniversary of KBPK in 2022, has always been to train students to work in a professional radio setting by following professional radio standards.

Seidel said that losing the license is not a problem for KBPK, since it is being absorbed by the journalism program and a lot of its activity has already started to shift into the realm of online streaming platforms.

He also claims that without the license, the program will be benefited by getting rid of many regulations from the FCC. “Now without the license, we can go ahead and stream and have a larger audience and do more stuff [now] that we don’t have to do the regular call outs,” said Seidel.

“We will still provide students with the training they need to produce content in accordance with FCC guidelines so that they can land jobs in traditional radio, but we will also shift our course content to be more in line with the current landscape of digital audio content and podcasting,” said The Hornet Adviser and member of the Journalism department Jessica Langlois.

Although not on the traditional radio, KBPK will still continue its regularly streamed broadcast alongside with video and other content via their media platforms as expressed in a statement released on Aug. 11.