Number of alotments per market?

[bobdavcav]

Are there rules that specify the number of alotments per class in a certain area? If there aren't, then why are there so many complicated applications? Here's what I mean,
KXIX/KRXF. KRXF originally started in 2006 on 92.7 as a class C2. When KTIL moved, the C0 at 94.1 had to move to 92.9, and the C2 at 92.7 had to move to 94.1. Why couldn't they just have just downgraded 94.1 and left 92.7?
More recently, WQBT/WIXV/Savanah, GA. Again, why doesn't 94.1 just downgrade and leave 95.5 as is?

 

[TomT]

The number of stations in a given area is dependent on how many can be shoe-horned in under the minimum separation rules (for 92.1 to 107.9) or by contour protection methods (88.1 to 91.9).

Prior to the allocation tables in the early 60's FM stations were engineered in by a system of protected and interfering contours, just like AM stations (same system still used for reserved band 'educational' stations).

Originally in the allocation tables there were markets with high powered stations, and markets with just Class A stations.

This was blown out with the Parkersburg/Hattiesburg/Panama City decision in the early 70's, which allowed Class B allotments in markets that originally only had Class A stations.

Then docket 80-90 came along creating several subclasses: B-1 and C-3: 25 kw @ 100 meters (but with different mileage separations) C-2, equivalent to a Class B with 50 at 150 meters, and the C-1, 100 kw but below the 300 meter and above full class C's. Naturally this left many stations 'grandfathered' in their class, especially Class C stations with less than full facilities.

Since then we've seen the emergence of 6 kw Class A stations, and intermediate Class C (C-0) to allow for further slicing and dicing. In addition, the grandfathered stations can be downgraded to their actual class, either by agreement, or by petition, to allow expansion or site moves by their surrounding stations.

E.G. the former WPAY (now WNKE), which lost its tower in an ice storm. The FAA would not allow them to build to the original height, which put them too low for a Class C. Several adjacent channel A's petitioned for a down-class to C-0, eventually an agreement was reached to change the class, allowing the A's to move into bigger cities.

There's been some push-back on move-ins. The Commission is now hostile to FM's moving from small markets to rated markets; and any move (apart from across town moves) requires that there be some service left in the small town.

 

[fybush]

KXIX/KRXF. KRXF originally started in 2006 on 92.7 as a class C2. When KTIL moved, the C0 at 94.1 had to move to 92.9, and the C2 at 92.7 had to move to 94.1. Why couldn't they just have just downgraded 94.1 and left 92.7?
More recently, WQBT/WIXV/Savanah, GA. Again, why doesn't 94.1 just downgrade and leave 95.5 as is?

In the Savannah case, it's an involuntary move - another broadcaster (Renda down in Jacksonville) is asking the FCC to force WQBT and WIXV to change channels in order to make room for an upgrade to its own 94.1 in the Jax market. The rules allow a broadcaster to do that, but only if it doesn't require a class downgrade at the station being involuntarily moved.

WQBT and WIXV have different owners - one is CC, one is Cumulus. (I forget which is which.) The station that's now on 94.1C, WQBT, can't be forced to downgrade involuntarily to 94.1C1...but it can be forced to move, without a downgrade, to 95.1C. (Think about it - if you own a class C on 94.1, do you want the FCC telling you that you have to downgrade to a C1 while your competitor gets a free upgrade from C1 to C?)

I think there was something similar at play in the KXIX/KRXF move - it was an involuntary downgrade and the two stations had different licensees, though one was LMA'd to the other. Again, you can't force an involuntarily downgrade on 94.1, but you can move a lower-class station to 94.1 and move the higher-class 94.1 license to, what was it, 92.9? In this case, because KXIX and KRXF were commonly operated, even though not commonly owned, the operator then shuffled the calls and formats to keep the 94.1 format on 94.1 and the 92.7 format near the same spot on the dial.

It's not that there are rules specifying the "number of allotments," exactly. It's more that the rules protect existing allotments almost absolutely. If I am operating a class C station, assuming I'm operating it at maximum class C facilities, there's nothing you can do to the allocations (without my consent, anyway) that will take away my class C status and force me to downgrade.

 

[bobdavcav]

Oh OK, thanks Scott. If CC and Cumulus were smart, they would swap licenses in Savanah as well, keeping the harritage I95 name intact.

 

[fybush]

It's entirely possible that they'll end up doing just that - but because the class C facility on 95.5 will be more valuable than the C1 on 94.1, there would probably have to be something else changing hands, too. (And this assumes that CC and Cumulus can't find some way to stop the involuntary channel changes from happening.)