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Thursday, May 16, 2019

Radio stations in hurricane-devastated Fla. Panhandle to play Trump speech snippets every hour until 2020 election

"Two days after President Trump rallied his base in Florida’s Panhandle, vowing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for the hurricane-devastated region, three local radio stations said they would air Trump speeches daily until the 2020 election," Tiffini Theisen reports for the Orlando Sentinel. "The stations will broadcast two-minute snippets of Trump speeches every hour of every day -- perhaps sometimes twice an hour -- until the end of the presidential race, owner Samuel Rogatinsky said."

Rogatinsky, a Fort Lauderdale-based attorney who owns Gulf Coast Media, bought three Panhandle FM stations late last year from Powell Broadcasting Co. Powell sold the stations after Hurricane Michael damaged facilities so badly that the stations were off air for several months, Theisen reports. 

Rogatinsky told Theisen he ran the notion of airing Trump speeches regularly by several locals and none objected because "It's Republican territory." He said Panhandle residents have felt forgotten in the seven months since the storm, and said the speeches could be uplifting. "Really, we just want to have inspirational type things because the community is so down," he told Thiesen. "Nobody else is really promising or doing anything. They want to hear what he has to say."

He told MSN that he would give equal airtime to other candidates if any requested it, to comply with Federal Communications Commission guidelines.

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