Pirate Cat Radio

Pirate Cat Radio (87.9 FM) was a low power community radio station in the San Francisco Bay Area. The station was one of many unlicensed radio stations operating in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Station founder Daniel Roberts claimed that he started broadcasting Pirate Cat Radio out of his bedroom in Los Gatos, California (a suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area), despite receiving "Notices of Unlicensed Radio Operation" from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Roberts claimed that he had been sent 160 warning letters from the FCC, but reasoned that although his transmitting equipment could be seized, he would not likely be prosecuted for broadcasting illegally. Roberts continued to ignore FCC letters and claimed on multiple occasions that the station was able to stay on the air based on a clause in FCC regulations that allows a licensing exemption in times of war. However, the FCC rewrote the wartime clause rules following a case in April 2008.

Plans were made to form a pirate television station similar to Berkeley pirate radio legend Stephen Dunifer’s low-cost experimental setup, with the station actively soliciting more pirated content at that time. In a radio interview with Skidmark Bob on Free Radio Santa Cruz in May 2005, Roberts discusses obtaining and rebroadcasting copies of BBC’s Doctor Who series before being available in the United States. Roberts called on listeners to "set up your own station and start playing whatever you want on TV … Now is the time, get on it." Roberts claimed that the online stream could hold up to 800 people, and planned for Pirate Cat Radio to reach 1000 watts using a directional Yagi-Uda antenna he had built.

Pirate Cat Radio rebroadcast The Howard Stern Show in 2006 in its uncensored form from Sirius Satellite Radio in the Los Angeles area without permission, although the signal was inconsistent. Stern himself expressed frustration that his subscription-based show was being spread for free, pleading with his audience to "just pay the 42 cents a day" for the Sirius service to access his content. The FCC had previously in 2004 cited Stern’s show on Clear Channel for "repeated graphic and explicit sexual descriptions" prior to moving to Sirius. Listeners to the illegal rebroadcasts did claim to have heard profane content on 88.3 FM in Los Angeles.

A physical location and café were opened in January 2008 for DJs and live audiences in the Mission District, San Francisco, built out by the staff. It changed ownership in early 2011 and later closed.

In May 2010, some of Pirate Cat Radio's programming was edited for content and rebroadcast on licensed Pescadero station KPDO 89.3. Pescadero residents like Rob Skinner, chairman of the communications committee for the Pescadero Municipal Advisory Council, found it jarring to hear songs such as “Teenage Enema Nurses In Bondage” or "Beat the Brat" on Easter morning.

FCC Fine
After years of hundreds of warnings, in April 2009 Federal Communications Commission regulators discovered one of the Pirate Cat Radio transmitters on a rooftop in Twin Peaks, broadcasting the station at a frequency higher than the legal limit. The FCC fined Roberts $10,000, forcing the station off the air. The fine was issued for broadcasting without a formal license from the FCC. In an interview, Roberts was quoted as saying "You know, a fine is bad, but I don’t want to go to jail. I look very bad in orange."

Closure
In November 2010, Roberts abruptly left for Europe, citing personal and financial reasons. That same month, Roberts brought in an outside investor who answered a "Wanna Buy Pirate Cat Radio?" ad on Craigslist. Roberts told staffers he'd sold a controlling interest of 80% of Pirate Cat Radio Cafe to an outside investor to whom they were to pay their monthly station dues, but that the station had been sold the previous August to nonprofit Pescadero Public Radio Service (whose President was then Roberts), which operates community radio station KPDO.

While DJ staff were instructed to pay their $30 monthly dues to the new investor in December 2010, at their January 2011 staff meeting they were told to instead deposit money into a different account. DJs expressed concerns for more transparency from Roberts, asking to see a budget. DJs claimed that Roberts terminated a DJ's position at the station over this, though he later denied this was the reason.

During a conference call on February 13, 2011, with Roberts still out of the country, DJs again confronted Roberts with questions about the ownership and finances of the station. After ending the call, Roberts proceeded to take the Pirate Cat Radio website and web stream offline without notifying the staff or dues paying members. At the same time, Roberts told Mission Local that "Pirate Cat is closed for now."

In March 2011, Roberts published a news release in which he claimed, "Rather than setting up a new corporation and organize another board of directors, it was easier and cheaper to merge PCR into PPRS." He stated that there were "three different entities" related to Pirate Cat Radio and Cafe:


 * 1) Pirate Cat Radio Inc.: a non-profit organization which owned nothing.
 * 2) Pirate Cat Radio and Café: a café business which was formerly a "sole proprietorship" until Roberts sold 80% to an outside investor, while retaining 20% of the business himself.
 * 3) Pirate Cat Radio: the radio operation trademarked and registered to Roberts, though he claimed that the online-only radio station was then-owned by Pescadero Public Radio Service.

However, KPDO founder Maggie Celeste Worden told the San Mateo County Times that Roberts never effectuated any transfer of one station to the other, and that there was no legal way for KPDO to own Pirate Cat as the two stations had separate accounts and did not co-mingle funds. The Pescadero station also opened a new bank account since the old one was solely controlled by Roberts, and they couldn’t access it. Roberts' lawyer, Michael Couzens, confirmed that combination of the two radio operations had never transpired, and thus he viewed the transfer as "null and void".

Roberts said that the firing of any DJs was not due to questions about the budget, but had to do with "inciting" other staff. He admitted that he "poorly orchestrated the sale of the café." A December 1, 2010 filing with the City of San Francisco indicated that "Pirate Cat Cafe and Studio" was owned by Pirate Cat Radio Inc. starting on November 19, 2010. A January 4, 2011 filing with the City of San Francisco said that "Pirate Cat Radio Station" was also owned by Pirate Cat Radio Inc. beginning November 19, 2010. These filings supersede an earlier fictitious business name filing for Pirate Cat Cafe and Studio from March 2008 to December 1, 2010, in which Daniel Roberts is listed as the owner.

The staff of Pirate Cat Radio announced in a statement that they were "not a party to the sale of the Pirate Cat Radio". On February 20, 2011, the Pirate Cat Radio website, internet radio stream and archive of shows were all taken offline.