WEW is 3 towers at night if they build the CP. The old has been moved on paper three or four times. The current site allows for only limited tower height, and is not the best site for 770. AND it will not cover much of the St Louis market no matter what or where the site is built, if ever. Birach apparently has little money these days between a lot of FCC fines and low end operations.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
92.7 FM/1130 AM in Brazil
- Thread starter radio lover
- Start date
FYBUSH IS WRONG. Bott holds the 1230 CP, and Birach hold the 640 CP. He plans to surrender the Holland 640 license if he can move 640. But I doubt that that will ever happen. It will be years before either frequency returns to the air. Bott is in no hurry to put 1230 on the air in Terre haute,, if ever.
If the CP expires, it goes back to the auction process, not other applicants
busterluck said:
To my knowledge (and I checked with the FCC's records), the FCC does not auction AM stations, only FM and TV.
Yes, the FCC did hold an auction the 640 Khz. frequency in Terre Haute, Indiana. This is the reason many people in Terre Haute are angry because this frequency was for Terre Haute, Indiana not for a suburb of Chicago, Illinois where the starting bid would have been more than $50.000. Please see the information to follow:
AM 640 Terre Haute, Indiana: Birach Broadcasting Corp. $ 53,000
FM 101.5 Greenwood, Arkansas: JEM Broadcasting Co. $165,750
FM 105.3 Durango, Colorado: KRJ Co. $ 15,000
FM 98.9 Steamboat Springs, Colorado: Ramsey Leasing $ 55,000
FM 101.1 Bloomfield, Indiana: Mid-America Radio Group $ 22,000
FM 104.5 Traverse City, Michigan: The MacDonald Bcstg. Co. $224,000
FM 98.9 Rosendale, New York: Hawkeye Communications $324,350
FM 93.7 North Madison, Ohio: South Shore Broadcasting $276,250
FM 98.1 Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico: Amor Radio Group Corp. $ 16,250
FM 107.7 Idalou, Texas: Ramar Communications $ 75,000
FM 102.5 Shawsville, Virginia: George S. Flinn Jr.* $153,000
FM 98.9 Two Rivers, Wisconsin: Tri-County Radio $ 31,850
(FM translator
FM 104.1 Coyote, California: Educational Media Fdn. $ 31,000
AM 640 Terre Haute, Indiana: Birach Broadcasting Corp. $ 53,000
FM 101.5 Greenwood, Arkansas: JEM Broadcasting Co. $165,750
FM 105.3 Durango, Colorado: KRJ Co. $ 15,000
FM 98.9 Steamboat Springs, Colorado: Ramsey Leasing $ 55,000
FM 101.1 Bloomfield, Indiana: Mid-America Radio Group $ 22,000
FM 104.5 Traverse City, Michigan: The MacDonald Bcstg. Co. $224,000
FM 98.9 Rosendale, New York: Hawkeye Communications $324,350
FM 93.7 North Madison, Ohio: South Shore Broadcasting $276,250
FM 98.1 Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico: Amor Radio Group Corp. $ 16,250
FM 107.7 Idalou, Texas: Ramar Communications $ 75,000
FM 102.5 Shawsville, Virginia: George S. Flinn Jr.* $153,000
FM 98.9 Two Rivers, Wisconsin: Tri-County Radio $ 31,850
(FM translator
FM 104.1 Coyote, California: Educational Media Fdn. $ 31,000
Here is the original information for the FCC auction of July, 2010. Why some stations are auctioned and others are granted on a point system I do not know. Someone could help me on this issue.
Location: Frequency Applicants Minimum opening bid
Terre Haute/ West Terre Haute/ Shelburn, Ind. 640 Contemporary Media Inc.; Fort Bend Broadcasting Company Inc.; Powell Meredith Communications Company; KM Communications, Inc.; Bott Broadcasting Company; Word Power, Inc.; Birach Broadcasting Corporation $50,000
Terre Haute/ West Terre Haute/ Shelburn, Ind. 1230 Fort Bend Broadcasting Company Inc.; Contemporary Media Inc.; Powell Meredith Communications Company; KM Communications, Inc.; Bott Broadcasting Company; Word Power, Inc. $50,000
Lansing/South Hill, N.Y. 750 Romar Communications Inc.; KM Communications Inc. $75,000
Location: Frequency Applicants Minimum opening bid
Terre Haute/ West Terre Haute/ Shelburn, Ind. 640 Contemporary Media Inc.; Fort Bend Broadcasting Company Inc.; Powell Meredith Communications Company; KM Communications, Inc.; Bott Broadcasting Company; Word Power, Inc.; Birach Broadcasting Corporation $50,000
Terre Haute/ West Terre Haute/ Shelburn, Ind. 1230 Fort Bend Broadcasting Company Inc.; Contemporary Media Inc.; Powell Meredith Communications Company; KM Communications, Inc.; Bott Broadcasting Company; Word Power, Inc. $50,000
Lansing/South Hill, N.Y. 750 Romar Communications Inc.; KM Communications Inc. $75,000
Commercial stations are subject to auction. Non-commerical stations are granted on a complicated FCC point system.
Sima B. is an interesting character. A lot of information about him has been wiped from the Internet over the years. Several years ago he was feuding with one of his sons over control of various stations in his "empire." (This was in the Washington DC area). At one time apparently he was reasonably successful as an ethnic broadcaster in SW Michigan. I guess buying broken radio stations is his hobby!
busterluck said:
For certain commercial stations, small businesses, women and minorities can be given "bidding credits" to add to their bid in the auction. I think that's what he was referring to. I have no idea how the FCC determines where they'll allow bidding credits and where they won't. Also, if you win a station with a bidding credit, you have to operate it for a certain amount of time (I believe three years) or sell it to another buyer that would have qualified for the same credit. Otherwise, you have to pay the difference back to the government.
Happy to be of help! Just to clarify the distinction between "points" and "auction": by Congressional mandate, commercial broadcasters must now go to auction to win new facilities, rather than the old "comparative hearings" by which the FCC was supposed to select winners in competitive application scenarios.
That's very cut and dried for FM - because commercial FM channels are allotted via a table of allocations, the FCC can very easily say "here's a new class A channel available at location X," and can set a minimum bid amount based on past experience. The FCC has learned in recent years that some of those minimums have to be very low indeed to entice broadcasters to bid on less-promising channels. (It should be noted that the FCC itself generally doesn't create these new allocations; some interested broadcaster has to propose them, and by this point in the game there's not much open spectrum left anywhere on the FM dial in any populated part of the country.)
There is no AM table of allocations. It's up to broadcasters to propose a facility and demonstrate to the FCC that it meets all the contour-protection guidelines to existing stations, at which point in theory the FCC groups "mutually exclusive" applications and holds an auction to determine a winner. In practice, the FCC hasn't had a window for new AM applications since 2004, so it hasn't had much of a reason to implement an extensive auction system for AM. Terre Haute is a very rare exception: because 640 and 1230 were vacated when Mike Rice lost his licenses, the FCC opened a special auction window for those channels. It's up to auction participants to determine what they think a signal is worth, and what they might be able to do with that signal. In the case of 640, any applicant seeking to use the channel was pretty much limited (by other existing 640 signals in Michigan and Ohio and Tennessee and Iowa) to using it at Terre Haute...with one exception. That, of course, was Birach, which uniquely among the applicants had the ability to sacrifice its own 640 in Michigan to allow for the Terre Haute 640 to be moved to Peotone. At least in theory, that made "640 Terre Haute" more valuable to Birach to anyone else, which probably explains why Birach ended up making the winning auction bid.
Terre Haute also represents a different kind of exception: when 107.5 was also proposed for auction, several broadcasters petitioned the FCC to convert it from commercial to noncommercial status, using an arcane section of the FCC rules that allows for noncommercial reservations in the commercial band when they can provide significant new first or second noncommercial service to populations that can't otherwise be served noncommercially. (This was relatively easy to do in central Indiana because WRTV's former channel 6 operation prevented many big signals in the noncomm band.)
And by law, noncommercial competitive applications can't be settled by auction...so that's where the points system still comes in. Applicants get points for factors such as largest proposed signal, local ownership and fewest other licenses held. Even after tie-breaker factors, there's still sometimes a tie, and if I recall right, that's what happened with 107.5 in TH, where I believe the FCC ended up proposing shared-time operation between several applicants.
Hope that helps make some sense out of what can be a very, very complex set of sometimes contradictory rules.
That's very cut and dried for FM - because commercial FM channels are allotted via a table of allocations, the FCC can very easily say "here's a new class A channel available at location X," and can set a minimum bid amount based on past experience. The FCC has learned in recent years that some of those minimums have to be very low indeed to entice broadcasters to bid on less-promising channels. (It should be noted that the FCC itself generally doesn't create these new allocations; some interested broadcaster has to propose them, and by this point in the game there's not much open spectrum left anywhere on the FM dial in any populated part of the country.)
There is no AM table of allocations. It's up to broadcasters to propose a facility and demonstrate to the FCC that it meets all the contour-protection guidelines to existing stations, at which point in theory the FCC groups "mutually exclusive" applications and holds an auction to determine a winner. In practice, the FCC hasn't had a window for new AM applications since 2004, so it hasn't had much of a reason to implement an extensive auction system for AM. Terre Haute is a very rare exception: because 640 and 1230 were vacated when Mike Rice lost his licenses, the FCC opened a special auction window for those channels. It's up to auction participants to determine what they think a signal is worth, and what they might be able to do with that signal. In the case of 640, any applicant seeking to use the channel was pretty much limited (by other existing 640 signals in Michigan and Ohio and Tennessee and Iowa) to using it at Terre Haute...with one exception. That, of course, was Birach, which uniquely among the applicants had the ability to sacrifice its own 640 in Michigan to allow for the Terre Haute 640 to be moved to Peotone. At least in theory, that made "640 Terre Haute" more valuable to Birach to anyone else, which probably explains why Birach ended up making the winning auction bid.
Terre Haute also represents a different kind of exception: when 107.5 was also proposed for auction, several broadcasters petitioned the FCC to convert it from commercial to noncommercial status, using an arcane section of the FCC rules that allows for noncommercial reservations in the commercial band when they can provide significant new first or second noncommercial service to populations that can't otherwise be served noncommercially. (This was relatively easy to do in central Indiana because WRTV's former channel 6 operation prevented many big signals in the noncomm band.)
And by law, noncommercial competitive applications can't be settled by auction...so that's where the points system still comes in. Applicants get points for factors such as largest proposed signal, local ownership and fewest other licenses held. Even after tie-breaker factors, there's still sometimes a tie, and if I recall right, that's what happened with 107.5 in TH, where I believe the FCC ended up proposing shared-time operation between several applicants.
Hope that helps make some sense out of what can be a very, very complex set of sometimes contradictory rules.
Scott Fybush said:
Correct. An interested broadcaster has to not only propose a new allotment but must also express a "continuing interest" in the allotment after having proposed it. The FCC has rejected several such proposals for that reason.
I seem to remember the FCC added that provision after some non-commercial operators sued saying the auction process was unfair. The FCC originally used the points system for non-commercial allocations but required non-commercial operators to bid on allotments in the commercial spectrum. They screamed that they couldn't compete.
I believe the FCC has proposed three applicants for 107.5 share time. I understand none of them are happy about it and are squabbling that either their proposal was the best of the three under the points system or that their competitors' proposals were inadequate.
The three winning 107,5 applicants need to have one open the checkbook and pay off the other two applicants. It seems no one is veryinteresting in building any new stations in Terre Haute. It is a horrible radio market with a poor economy.
Again, thank you for the education on the point system and auction.
When the 107.5 Mhz. frequency was divided between three churches I was puzzled to say the least. Both Indiana University and Indiana State University applied for this non-commercial frequency. Years ago the before mentioned identities were the ones wanting to make 107.5 Mhz. a non-commercial situation and filed briefs on how public radio could be better served in Terre Haute. (With four colleges in Terre Haute WFIU, from Indiana University, broadcasts from a translator on top of a building that will soon be torn down. A CP is out to move the translator to another building that is staying put on the campus of ISU.)
I know the FCC has nothing to do with programming but it seems as if the government agency has created their own problem. Two church groups out of three fighting to share a frequency, an NPR station broadcasting from a translator that gets out 25 to 30 miles with static and a commercial station duopoly.
When the 107.5 Mhz. frequency was divided between three churches I was puzzled to say the least. Both Indiana University and Indiana State University applied for this non-commercial frequency. Years ago the before mentioned identities were the ones wanting to make 107.5 Mhz. a non-commercial situation and filed briefs on how public radio could be better served in Terre Haute. (With four colleges in Terre Haute WFIU, from Indiana University, broadcasts from a translator on top of a building that will soon be torn down. A CP is out to move the translator to another building that is staying put on the campus of ISU.)
I know the FCC has nothing to do with programming but it seems as if the government agency has created their own problem. Two church groups out of three fighting to share a frequency, an NPR station broadcasting from a translator that gets out 25 to 30 miles with static and a commercial station duopoly.
Interesting thought. The WFNF AM 2mv circle easily covers all of Terre Haute which means that it could technically have a translator in the city of Terre Haute. At that point, the AM could have better FM coverage in the city limits of TH than the 92.7 FM does.Rosebud3 said:
I think I can end the speculation for the second translator Emmis intends to buy and use: First the one moved into Indy, and the second one is K241BS tha is a fill in for their suburban 97.1 KFTK. It s shameful that Emmis did not have the money to buy the Terre Haute 102.7 when it was being shopped by Crossroads. It sold to Midwest for only 1.2 million. Crossroads paid around 3 million for it when they bought it. Of course Emmis had to sell the three big FMs recently to keep their ship afloat
- Status