xiradiodotcom said:
Nu_Roo_2 said:
and they're getting away with it due to the crime against Columbus perpetrated by the FCC when it grossly under-allocated the market long ago.
I will have to disagree with this statement. The FCC granted licenses early on for FM, and it granted some big ones (WNCI) to entice AM owners to move into FM. Not many were interested. They didn't say, "Columbus, you're pretty small, you only get X big signals". There simply was not enough interest by Columbus business to get them on the air before all of the smaller surrounding communities. Even many of the smaller signals only came on the air in the 90s. I moved here in 1992 and there was A LOT of white space in the Columbus radio spectrum. So now we are faced with smaller operators getting out of the business due to financial troubles and the big guys shuffling things around to get the transmitter a few miles closer to the metro.
Actually, Columbus radio history shows *quicker* embracing of FM locally than elsewhere -- both by owners and listeners. After bringing in a smart national consultant, WNCI shot to the top in 1975, decimating supposedly-invincible AM Top 40 powerhouse WCOL in what seemed like a split second. In most markets the big AM Top 40's kept going strong into the early 80's. Also, Columbus already had a lot of non-simulcast programming on 92.3, 96.3, 97.1, and especially 97.9 (originally classical in the 60's as WRFD-FM!), long before the FCC dictated a reduction in simulcasting on AM. But because of the paltry allocations, move-in attempts started earlier here than elsewhere, though rarely effectively done (a very key point). This includes 103.9 WBBY (certainly no better signal than WTDA has today), which was fired up in about 1970 as a Westerville station (which it remains) targeted at Columbus. Local listeners were so receptive to FM that WBBY-FM even topped the then-FM-Market-Leader, full-signal 97.1 WBNS-FM (then Beautiful Music) a couple times.
Interestingly, the early listener receptiveness to FM here was borne of the similar, earlier problem of FCC under-allocating Columbus *AM* signals as well. Most markets this size have long-time big-signal AMs, too, including 50k and even clear channel (broadcasting term, not company) 50k's like WLW in Cincinnati. Even smallish Ft. Wayne's WOWO-AM was 50k (clear channel, I believe) until Inner City bought it the 90's or early 00's simply to turn down the juice and thus allow their NYC AM to broadcast at night (and/or increase power -- I forget exactly which).
Heck, Columbus got short shrift from the FCC in TV allocations, too. Compare Columbus's TV allocations to markets half the size. Cable and satellite were what kept the TV situation from being as maddening as the radio situation. And BTW, that TV under-allocation is one of the key reasons Columbus became a pioneer non-rural cable market for Time Warner, and why they were so successful here. All these stories, radio and TV, trace back to the original under-allocation of full-market broadcast-outlets -- AM-FM-TV -- by the FCC.
The original FCC under-allocations for Columbus (both AM and FM) resulted from the convergence of multiple factors, including (but not limited to):
-- Columbus' proximity to other large/medium markets; the fact that the market, while not exactly "small," hadn't grown yet and was certainly not projected to be the hotbed of growth that it turned out to be
-- Lack of lobbying aggressiveness against the paltry allocations
-- Far-poorer move-in execution here (e.g., in 40 years Columbus scored only one true full-make move-in, CC's wretchedly-wasted-as-a-WSNY-needler 93.3, while Indy has multiple move-is that boom over the whole metro).
Another factor could have been lack of aggressiveness (and political clout?) by local broadcasters back when the FCC originally made its AM, FM and TV allocations -- which is sort of parallel to your "not interested" comment, although I would change "not interested" to "lackadaisical and non-aggressive" -- very much in tune with the mantra local big-signal broadcasters live by today. And once they saw that under-allocations actually helped the bottom line of stations the DO have big FM signals (as the former WSNY GM once admitted in a Columbus Monthly article), they were certainly in no hurry to rock the boat!
As for the unrealized possibility other, more aggressive broadcasters coming in and, say, accomplishing better move-ins as they did in markets like Indy, well, Columbus' traditional anonymity certainly didn't help, either.
Then consolidation came along, and the fact that only one company, CC, had the dollars and lawyer firepower to overcome unfavorable signal-protection patterns for Columbus was largely responsible for cementing the sorry scenario we're left with today. A company whose local contingent has the luxury of wasting some decent move-ins (for petty -- even ugly -- reasons masquerading as "business decisions") and still being successful. With the biggest indefensible travesty of course being how they continue to waste 93.3 as a "let's-get-back-at-em-for our opposing-our-move-ins" thorn instead of providing Columbus with something new like cutting-edge (???) markets like Louisville and Tulsa get. Or even very-mainstream stuff like "modernized oldies" type Classic Hits that is doing unbelievably well across most of the country across the country, especially with the soon-to-get-to-us PPM.
BTW, I'd sure be interested in know what VIABLE white space you say you found in the local FM band when you moved here in 1992. Don't forget that it would take YEARS of legal wrangling before a Docket 80-90 drop-in could hit the airwaves.
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