Chip Rogers Breaks Silence on Radio License Controversy

Former Georgia Senate majority leader Chip Rogers is striking back at reports that call into question whether he regained control of a Cartersville radio station without notifying in Federal Communications Commission. 

The attorney for the owner of WYXC -AM1270 says former Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers sold the station in August, but Rogers is denying those claims. 

According to CBS Atlanta, Douglas Davis, the attorney for owner Greg Detscher, said Rogers sold the station in August. 

He told the news station's investigative reporter that Detscher bought the station from Clarion Communications, Inc., who said one of the officers in the company was Rogers.

The radio station is at the center of a contentious court case in Bartow County where its feuding partners hurled accusations of financial mismanagement and a "hostile takeover." 

The attorney's comments come on the heels of a report published last week in Atlanta Unfiltered that reported Rogers recently regained control of the station without notifying the FCC. 

The attorney's comments contradict what Rogers told Patch in an emailed statement. Rogers said he sold the radio station to Clarion Communications in 2005. 

"Since that time I have had no involvement with the operation of the station in any capacity," he added.

In 2008, according to Rogers, the purchasers "failed to make payments to me in accordance with our contract." 

"I considered the owners of Clarion to be friends and told them I would not foreclose on the property because of the damage it would do to their credit," he added. "All I asked is that they find me a new buyer. One of the two partners in Clarion found me a buyer in 2012."
 
On Dec. 21, 2012, Rogers said he took out all the stock of Clarion and on that same day, signed over control of the station to NewsTalk Corporation through what's known as a local marketing agreement, or LMA. 

LMAs are when a station owner allows another broadcaster to rent the station, take over the programming and advertise for a fee. 

Rogers noted all of this occurred before he began his tenure atGeorgia Public Broadcasting where he is the executive director of the Georgia Works initiative.

Even if he was working at the GPB when this occurred, he noted "there would have been no issue since I took back the stock and transferred control on the same day."

In August, the former senator noted one of the partners arranged "for financing so that he could purchase the stock of Clarion." 

Rogers said all of this was disclosed in a court hearing in Bartow County on Wednesday. 

Rogers resigned from the Georgia State Senate less than a month after his re-election to his seat to take the position with GPB, which garners him a salary of $150,000 per year.