New Freedom Communications head wants a station in Orange County

[Kyle_Hojem]

Read in the OCRegister the other day that the new head of Freedom Communications wants to possibly start a new TV station in Orange County. Several years ago, the Register had OCN (Orange County News channel) which was a cable operation for news on Orange County. After being sold, the network was shut down.
As I see it, there would be no way to build another TV station in Orange County because of CP's being needed, as well has money that may or may not be there. The best idea that could come of this is that Freedom could buy KPXN channel 30 from Paxson when he sells the stations (or NBC buys and sells them) and then duplex the signal on a tower with another TV station on Mt. Wilson (or a local mountain range around the OC). And from that, guide all of the programing to Orange County.<P ID="signature">______________

Member of the Los Angeles, Phoenix Radio, and California TV moderation team</P>

 

[John_U]

> Read in the OCRegister the other day that the new head of
> Freedom Communications wants to possibly start a new TV
> station in Orange County.

Maybe they could get into the Channel 50 circus

John

 

[MichaelRivers]

First... You would have to convince the FCC to take away the only commercial television license away from San Bernardino. KPXN is licensed to San Berardino. KSCI used to be licensed to San Berardino, but is now licensed to Long Beach. KTBN used to be licensed to Fontana, now it's licensed to Santa Ana.



> Read in the OCRegister the other day that the new head of
> Freedom Communications wants to possibly start a new TV
> station in Orange County. Several years ago, the Register
> had OCN (Orange County News channel) which was a cable
> operation for news on Orange County. After being sold, the
> network was shut down.
> As I see it, there would be no way to build another TV
> station in Orange County because of CP's being needed, as
> well has money that may or may not be there. The best idea
> that could come of this is that Freedom could buy KPXN
> channel 30 from Paxson when he sells the stations (or NBC
> buys and sells them) and then duplex the signal on a tower
> with another TV station on Mt. Wilson (or a local mountain
> range around the OC). And from that, guide all of the
> programing to Orange County.
>
<P ID="signature">______________
Michael Rivers
Los Angeles</P>

 

[KMRichards]

> Maybe they could get into the Channel 50 circus

Channel 50 is a dedicated non-commercial allocation and therefore cannot be used for a commercial station.<P ID="signature">______________


</P>

 

[ShawnHill]

> Read in the OCRegister the other day that the new head of
> Freedom Communications wants to possibly start a new TV
> station in Orange County. Several years ago, the Register
> had OCN (Orange County News channel) which was a cable
> operation for news on Orange County. After being sold, the
> network was shut down.
> As I see it, there would be no way to build another TV
> station in Orange County because of CP's being needed, as
> well has money that may or may not be there. The best idea
> that could come of this is that Freedom could buy KPXN
> channel 30 from Paxson when he sells the stations (or NBC
> buys and sells them) and then duplex the signal on a tower
> with another TV station on Mt. Wilson (or a local mountain
> range around the OC). And from that, guide all of the
> programing to Orange County.
>
The only other station that they could go after is KDOC. KTBN is off-limits and is the flagship of its network and KOCE is non-commerical. I would certainly that Freedom has enough money to upgrade KDOC and better promote the station. In terms of programs, they seemed to a decent selection of shows, basically taking the scraps from the major stations. If KDOC could be programmed more like Chicago's WWME, which I hear by reading the Chicago TV board and other message boards, seems to be pretty popular among Chicagoans. But, then again, what might be popular in the Windy City might not play in Southern California, after all a lot of people think still of Channel 56 as the Wally George station and he's been dead for at least 3 years and didn't produce a live episode of Hot Seat in many years prior to his death. You figure for the right price, Pat Boone and his fellow investors might sell KDOC to Freedom or whomever else.

 

[zumahans1]

KPXN "studios" are in Burbank

> First... You would have to convince the FCC to take away the
> only commercial television license away from San Bernardino.
> KPXN is licensed to San Berardino. KSCI used to be
> licensed to San Berardino, but is now licensed to Long
> Beach. KTBN used to be licensed to Fontana, now it's
> licensed to Santa Ana.
>

Unless an Orange County-based owner wanted a better signal in OC, and wanted to move the transmitter, there would be no reason to move the city of license.

There would be no convincing at all. As it is now, KPXN originates in Burbank.

 

[KMRichards]

Re: KPXN "studios" are in Burbank

> Unless an Orange County-based owner wanted a better signal
> in OC, and wanted to move the transmitter, there would be no
> reason to move the city of license.

Unless, of course, the owner had some odd idea that the COL, displayed in itty bitty type once an hour, needed to be an OC city. Which I agree would be a ridiculous reason to change it.

> There would be no convincing at all. As it is now, KPXN
> originates in Burbank.

And, as you implied by putting "studios" in quotes, has no locally-originated studio programming at all. The whole thing is run by NBC Master Control.

What puzzles me about Freedom's whole concept is: What makes them believe that people would eschew movies, reruns, and other syndicated programming for "local" shows?<P ID="signature">______________


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