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FM band in Fairbanks

S

ssnake

Is there a reason (other than expense) why the FM band in Fairbanks hasn't been fully built out? Certainly you could get full Class C spacing on several channels in 92.1-95.1, 98.9-99.5, and 105.5-107.9.

I grew up in North Pole during the 80s; the earliest that I remember, the only commercial FM choices were K-101.1, KQRZ on 102.5, and KSUA on 103.9. Things have greatly improved since then, but still it looks like the market is underradioed. Why not, at the least, put some low power stations up?

I was thinking there might be something else preventing new allocations, since KUAC-FM and KSUA traded the commercial frequencies.
 
Allocation issues aside, I believe it's simple economics at work. Folks I know personally who work in management in the market say nobody's making any serious money in radio in Fairbanks. Not that everybody's going broke; just that there is only so much advertising revenue and to slice the pie in smaller slices won't hurt the few who are making a living but would be a stake in the heart of marginal operations.

Were a gas pipeline to actually happen Fairbanks might experience another population boom that would attract more interest in building new stations but that boom would be of finite duration and the end result would be a greater number of marginal signals just waiting for a "greater fool" to come along any buy.
 
With 16 signals ( 12 commerical) serving a market of 89,000, I would say that isn't so bad. As AKLes has stated, the companies have to turn a profilt to stay on the air. I wonder how many other cities in America of similar size have 16 signals? Anchorage/Matsu with 360,000 population has 32 signals. So half as many with 1/4 the population base isn't doing so bad for Fairbanks.
 
16 signals isn't so bad for a market that size, but Fairbanks is in a unique situation because it is so remote that there are essentially no other stations outside of the market to protect (at least in the FM band). Most smaller markets in the lower 48 are limited in number of signals due to adjacent markets (and also can lose listener share accordingly).

I wouldn't think economics would be much of an issue because the marginal cost of starting a station is reasonably small, in today's centralized cluster environment utilizing shared transmission sites. A 6 kW equivalent could cover the important parts of the Tanana Valley well. And even though there are more stations, there aren't any more owners in Fairbanks than 20 years ago due to the consolidation. Though the revenue might not be impressive from additional stations, I'd imagine the equity investment would be commensurate. I write this as I'm watching an LPTV that is just looping some 30-minute "Saturday Night Knife and Gun Show" over and over -- now that is worthless!

I haven't looked at the details of the auctions lately, but I'd guess one could get a Class A allocation cheaper, thereby effectively reserving the channel in the Fairbanks area for a full Class C later. Get an exciter, a 2 bay antenna, rent some space on top of that abandoned Polaris Hotel downtown, load up a computer with iTunes, and hire a salesperson on commission. Outsource programming and production to some part-timers in the lower 48 over the Internet. Multiply this by three and share the same tower space. This could be profitable?
 
Remember, Fairbanks is in a really hot zone for The Aurora and that raises merry hell with AM reception. Extremely noisy! And we're coming into a several-year long cycle of high sunspot activity.
 
I was stationed at Eielson AFB, about 30 miles east of Fairbanks back in 1972-73. I worked on AFRN 1490 at Eielson. We only had 50w signal that was transmitted via a copper wire running up a telephone pole. You could pick up AFRN clearly 30 miles away in Fairbanks. At that time there were only 5 AM and 1 FM station serving Fairbanks. Two rock, one country, one religious station that had a 50K signal (KJNP), and AFRN. The one FM station was the U of AK station that broadcasted NPR and simular type programming. There were three TV stations, 2 commercial (one NBC/ABC and one CBS/ABC). The noncomm was the U of AK PBS affiliate. Fairbanks also had an international airport with five commerical airlines serving it. The population of Fairbanks then (prior to the oil pipeline) was about 15,000.

I'd say that having 16 radio signals today for a city of 89,000 isn't bad at all. As the one poster mentioned, you've got that many stations because there isn't any nearby stations in other cities that need to be protected, location location location. An example would be Wilmington Delaware that has a metro population of over 525,000, but only has 2 FM, 5 AM stations that have Wilmington as the city of license (market #75). Philly (market #7) is only 23 miles north and Baltimore (market #20) is 68 miles south. So both Anchorage and Fairbanks have far more radio than Wilmington could ever hope to have, but of course we can get most Philly stations and a number of the Baltimore stations, and even some NYC AM stations.
 
...And now Fairbanks is up to 20 FM signals. Although a few have North Pole as their COL...
Personally I think it's a GREAT radio market, having heard it in person. Really well organized in terms of formats being near each other on the dial, etc. So I'd call it a well-radioed market for what it is.
 
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