Re: KIOC Orange TX Downgraded! KOVE-FM Next?
> > I'll believe it when I see it. It won't happen.
>
> It's done! Read FCC Document number DA05-2206
>
> FCC ordered the change last week. Nothing Clear
> Channel can do about it. They missed the deadline
> two months ago and still don't have anything
> filed.
>
KOVE-FM 106.5 Galveston could be the next downgrade to a C0. Crawford filled for the downgrade on RM 10778 and a Katherine Pyeatt has filed for a downgrade on RM HM-003 along with an application for a new station in Matagorda on 106.1C3.
So far Univision has not filed for an upgrade. The tower KOVE-FM is on in Hitchcock is 419.1m tall and KOVE-FM is listed at 405m. I don't know how difficult or expensive it would be to add another 40m to the existing tower to give KOVE-FM the minimum needed for a Class C? With the station so far south of downtown, I'm surprised the tower wasn't built at 600m.
Just what Matagorda County doesn't need is another station. If it meets the specs the FCC will approve it though. Any place any where with a few hundred people and the station allocation is approved for auction. The FCC finally deleted a dozen or so allocations that had run through the auction process several times with no takers.
Bay City {Matagorda County} has under 40,000 people and is some time away from growing into a large suburb of Houston. At this time the Matagorda Co line up is the following:
CP 88.1C2 KFRT (K-Fart?) Bay City Family Radio
CP 89.5C2 KZBJ Bay City KSBJ Network
AP 91.3A New Bay City
LIC 92.3A KZRC Markham {this station has been for sale for years} {RSV for a C3}
ADD 94.9A New Matagorda
ADD 98.3C3 New Palacios
LIC 99.7C2 KROY Palacios
ADD 100.7A New Palacios
LIC 101.7C1 KXGJ Bay City
LIC 102.5C2 KMKS Bay City{RSV C1}
ADD 106.1C3 New Matagorda
That is eleven stations, not counting Translators for less than 40K people. going by that count, Sugar Land or Missouri City should have about 22 stations each. This doesn't take into account nearly all the Houston stations have a great signal in Bay City and the stations the ring Matagorda County, like KIOX-FM 96.9 El Campo; KJOJ 103.3 Freeport; and many Victoria stations that are very listenable in Matagorda County.
I read a very interesting article about how much the FCC depends upon the $$$$'s they make on the FM Auctions. There is a problem, with the exception of rural city's and dots on the map, there are not any more open frequencies and the stations that the FCC has in most of the latest auctions are low price {by FCC standards} allocations and many are not even being bid on, apparently there are some sane people left that won't buy a frequency just for the sake of serving a few hundred people and little to no chance of income. Even Cheyenne, WY can support only so many stations with the population of the city and surrounding area.
CW you have stated many times that we will not see the Separation Tables for FM Stations revised in our lifetime. Hopefully we will both live much longer than that. While there is nothing officially on the FCC agenda to change the Tables, the only way the FCC can squeeze in more stations is to reduce the separation so they can have applications filed for cities and towns near to the larger markets that under todays R&R's have no room for any more stations. Any station that would be auctioned off near a large or especially major market will bring in mega bucks to the FCC.
I realize that NAB for starters would be against any plan like that, but I think the auction money will speak louder than NAB, etal. Don't be surprised to see a new set of Tables in a few years. For stations that are rimshots to city's and want to move closer, while they will still be guaranteed the same frequency, they will have to pay the going minimum auction price for that allocation. You can be sure it will be a very hefty sum of money.
It could be interesting in a couple of years if the FCC does go through with a new Table and just how close spaced the stations will be allowed. Since IBOC does not seem to cause adjacent channel interference, the 1st adjacents can be reduced without problem and 2nd adjacents by a large margin and very possibly do away with 3rd channel seperation completely. Canada did away with their Table of Separations some time in the last five years or so. I am not sure what the rules are under the new Table, there is no 3rd channel separation and 1st adjacents as a C2 seem to be about 40 miles. There is no longer any protection to US stations in Canada. Canada will not send a signal into the states that has not already been agreed upon, but I noticed at least three Buffalo stations that easily put a good signal into Toronto now have Toronto stations on those frequencies. I spend time in Western New York every year for anywhere from a few weeks to a month and nearly every frequency has a station on it and with every rental car I have had so far there was no problem or even 1st channel interference and the majority of stations had a good to excellent signal.
We will know in a few years if the article had any merit to the FCC squeezing more stations into the large and major markets and the outer suburbs. So Cal could be a gold mine for the FCC.
Mike O
