Perkins. License renewal limbo Hearings for both WJMO and WYLT's licenses were conducted by administrative law judge John H. Conlin on June 16, 1976. His 50-page ruling issued on February 17, 1977, recommended to the FCC that both station licenses should not be renewed. WJMO and WLYT were admonished for multiple violations of FCC rules, policies and the Communications Act to the point "...in combination, they establish a monumental record of licensee indifference to a variety of agency regulations and procedures." Conlin also stated this pattern of rule violations was similar to patterns uncovered by WOOK and WFAB in their respective hearings, both stations summarily had their license renewals denied by the FCC; incidentally, WFAB signed off permanently three days after this ruling, while WOOK (under the WFAN callsign) would cease operations one year later and be replaced with WYCB, a new license owned by a group that contested United's license for WOOK. Conlin concluded with regards to WJMO and WLYT, "the same result is plainly called for here." An attempted sale of WJMO to Brunson Broadcasting—headed by Dorothy Brunson, an executive with Inner City Broadcasting Corporation—was announced on October 12, 1979, for $3 million, United/Friendly planned to retain WLYT. With the sale announcement, United/Friendly filed petitions to divest WJMO, along with WMUR-TV and KECC-TV, under the FCC's distress policy, selling the stations at prices substantially below market value to minority-controlled groups, the petitions included a waiver request from the stipulation that stations that had their licenses designated for hearing could not participate. A similar sale attempt took place with WMJX/Miami, which itself was eventually denied by the commission. The sale proceedings and further license reviews took yet another unexpected turn when Richard Eaton died from cancer on June 1, 1981. Upon execution of his will, all of his radio and television stations passed from involuntary control over to Eaton's estate as the Suburban Trust Company, controlled by Suburban Bancorp of Maryland, as Eaton was the sole stockholder in United and all related subsidiaries. Due to Eaton's death, and amid questions over character appraisals for the rest of the United stations, coupled with concern over possible linkage to similar actions taken by the commission against RKO General, the FCC postponed a final license review for both WJMO and WLYT to the following June. The FCC set aside the administrative law judge's 1977 denial of renewal requests, and conditionally renewed the