How many radio stations out there shared time for broadcasting. For example in New York City, WFDU and WNYU have separate license, but they both share frequency of 89.1 FM. Similar to Phoenix, AZ of KNAI and KPHF 88.3. Does FCC stills allow share time frequencies? Also, what other share frequencies stations are out there?
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Shared frequency time stations
- Thread starter e-dawg
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There are still a handful, despite some buyouts and mergers in recent years that have ended some of the most historic sharetimes such as Chicago's three-way 1240 and Topeka/Manhattan KS' 580. In Chicago, WCEV (ethnic) and WRLL (Spanish religious, I think) share 1450. In Decorah, Iowa, commercial KDEC has 1240 for most of the day but shares the frequency at night with Luther College's KWLC. There are a few other FM sharetimes, too: in suburban Minneapolis, high school station KDXL 106.5 shares its class D (10-watt) frequency with KUOM-FM, the simulcast of the U. of Minn's "Radio K" KUOM 770. I know I'm forgetting one or two others.
My vote for the most interesting share timer would be WFAA and WBAP in Dallas and Fort Worth, sharing 570 and 820 and alternating in use of each frequency.
Among the ones I have heard myself doing switches are the 1380's in New York and WLEE and the church station in Richmond on 1480. I never heard it, but WENR and WLS were sharetimers, too.
And I know a website where the hundreds of sharetimers from the 1920's are listed.
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Hey, I know that website, too!
If we're going to talk about defunct shares, there are plenty of fascinating ones. The NYC 1330s (WBBR/WPOW and WEVD/WNYM) at one time shared with a third station, WHAZ in Troy, 120 miles to the north. And because there was a bit of distance between the 1380s in NYC (WBNX) and NJ (WAWZ), WAMS on 1380 in Delaware had different patterns depending on which one it was protecting. Then there was the sort-of sharetime in LA between KGFJ 1230 and KPPC 1240, with KGFJ dialing back power when KPPC was on for its limited hours. Go back a few decades before that and you hit the even weirder shares between, for instance, WOWO and WWVA on 1160 or WBAL and WTIC on 1060. (Except when WBAL was on 760 operating as an experimental synchro with WJZ, of course...) Wish I'd been alive to hear some of those!
If we're going to talk about defunct shares, there are plenty of fascinating ones. The NYC 1330s (WBBR/WPOW and WEVD/WNYM) at one time shared with a third station, WHAZ in Troy, 120 miles to the north. And because there was a bit of distance between the 1380s in NYC (WBNX) and NJ (WAWZ), WAMS on 1380 in Delaware had different patterns depending on which one it was protecting. Then there was the sort-of sharetime in LA between KGFJ 1230 and KPPC 1240, with KGFJ dialing back power when KPPC was on for its limited hours. Go back a few decades before that and you hit the even weirder shares between, for instance, WOWO and WWVA on 1160 or WBAL and WTIC on 1060. (Except when WBAL was on 760 operating as an experimental synchro with WJZ, of course...) Wish I'd been alive to hear some of those!
Same situation in Des Moines, two colleges share the LPFM frequency on 94.1 In the 70s there was a share-time of an FM in Knoxville IA, the result of a settlement between competing applicants. The local AM wanted the FM mainly to do HS sports, and the other side was a religious broadcaster. So, that's the arrangement they put into the shared time agreement. KRLS was on the air maybe 6 hours a week for HS sports, otherwise iit was Christian KTAV. KRLS bought out KTAV somewhere in the 80s.
Tuscaloosa, AL has two sharetime LPFMs on 103.3: WTUS-LP is a glorified TIS station run by the Convention & Visitors Bureau, and WUAC-LP which has a Christian rock and rap format. WUAC-LP's webpage has been down for some time - it was never much more than a placeholder anyway - and I'm wondering if it's still on the air at all.
As Scott said, there is a commercial station sharing time with a non-comm on AM in Iowa.
Yes, there have been timeshare TV stations. Two that I've personally seen include two commercial stations sharing channel 60 in the Chicago area in the 1980s (1990s?) and the sharing arrangement between WILX-TV (NBC) and WMSB-TV (PBS) on channel 10 in Lansing, Michigan. Once UHF got on its feet, WMSB landed on channel 23 with new call letters WKAR-TV.
Timesharing was fairly popular in the early days of TV. I think it was mostly a way of getting a signal on the air without having to wait for the FCC to decide which of several competing applicants would get the channel.
The KDEC/KWLC sharing arrangement dates back to at least January 1928. It was a fairly common situation at the time: an educational institution wanted to broadcast but didn't want to use enough hours to justify their own frequency. So they were assigned to share time with a commercial station.
I can only guess why the arrangement has survived this long.
- For KDEC: Maybe they figure they couldn't operate profitably in the 8pm-1am hours used by KWLC. The FCC minimum schedule regulations require operation between 6-10pm -- if the college is willing to pay for half that time KDEC isn't going to complain. (it does look like KWLC gets the channel fulltime on weekends, which seems a bit strange -- one would think sports programming would be quite profitable for KDEC on the weekends)
- For KWLC: I believe there's only one transmitter & KDEC is probably paying for it.
KWLC does stream & looking at the website it looks like an active facility, unlike some college stations I've encountered.
I can only guess why the arrangement has survived this long.
- For KDEC: Maybe they figure they couldn't operate profitably in the 8pm-1am hours used by KWLC. The FCC minimum schedule regulations require operation between 6-10pm -- if the college is willing to pay for half that time KDEC isn't going to complain. (it does look like KWLC gets the channel fulltime on weekends, which seems a bit strange -- one would think sports programming would be quite profitable for KDEC on the weekends)
- For KWLC: I believe there's only one transmitter & KDEC is probably paying for it.
KWLC does stream & looking at the website it looks like an active facility, unlike some college stations I've encountered.
Yeah, good points. As I looked at the stations I was thinking that it was good for KDEC because the license allowed them to stay on the air, year round, longer than a daytimer with critical hours authorization plus the college kids pick up the bill to keep the frequency alive until 1AM giving the community the impression of a full time station. KWLC does appear to have active involvement and benefits because they probably don't have the staff available to program live/local freeform radio more than 5 hours a day. Also, with these stations having separate AM licenses it would allow either or both to buy and program 24/7 FM translator(s).
All assumptions. It would be cooler if KWLC included some more background on their website about this now unique setup.
All assumptions. It would be cooler if KWLC included some more background on their website about this now unique setup.
Phoenix AZ: KOOL-TV & KOY-TV shared Channel 10 in 1953, with the former buying out the latter after about 6 months.
Rochester NY: WVET-TV and WHEC-TV shared Channel 10 between 1953 and 1961.
Mpls/St. Paul MN: WTCN-TV and WMIN-TV shared Channel 11 from 1953 to 1955.
Kansas City MO: KMBC-TV and WHB-TV shared Channel 9 in 1953-54.
And WKAR-TV/WMSB East Lansing MI was probably the only analog station in the US to go from UHF to VHF and back again. It started on Channel 60 in 1954, joined the time-share with WILX-TV on Channel 10 in 1959 (as WMSB), then moving back to UHF on Channel 23 in 1972, again as WKAR-TV.
Another Topeka frequency, 1250, had a nominal time-share agreement with the University of Kansas AM station until both went silent in 1987. The calls were WREN (Topeka) and KFKU (Lawrence).
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Share Time Radio Stations in Chicago
In Chicago there is one share time arrangement of WCEV and WRLL on the 1450 AM frequency. WCEV airs mainly foreign language programs while WRLL airs Spanish language programs. WRLL is black owned. The owners, Midway Broadcasting, also own WVON, an urban talk station, on the extended AM dial at 1690 AM. WVON, which used to share the 1450 A.M. frequency with WCEV,operates on 1690 Khz in a local marketing agreement with I Heart Comunications, which formerly operated a 1950s oldies station on 1690, using the call letters WRLL, signifying Real Oldies.
The share time on 1450 kHz began in 1980 resulting from an agreement between two applicants for the frequency which had been abandoned by WVON in the mid 1970s when WVON moved from 1450 to 1390 kHz. Classical music station WFMT-FM was allowed to simulcast its programming on 1450 KHz until the FCC awarded the frequency in 1980.
The oldest share time in Chicago was on 1240 kHz where WSBC, WEDC and WCRW shared that frequency since 1926. The share time ended in the late 1990s when the owner of WSBC bought WEDC and WCRW.
WLS and WENR shared the 890 KHZ frequency from the mid 1920s to 1954.
In 1954 the stations merged as WLS, 50 percent each owned by ABC Radio and The Prarie Farmer Newspaper. In 1959, ABC bought The Prarie Farmer to gain control of WLS and change the station's format from rural oriented to Top 40 music.
For about 10 years WAIT shared time on Sundays with WCBD, a religious station.
Although a separately owned station, WCBD broadcasts were conducted by WAIT engineers and annoucers. The share time lasted from the mid 1940s to 1959.
In Chicago there is one share time arrangement of WCEV and WRLL on the 1450 AM frequency. WCEV airs mainly foreign language programs while WRLL airs Spanish language programs. WRLL is black owned. The owners, Midway Broadcasting, also own WVON, an urban talk station, on the extended AM dial at 1690 AM. WVON, which used to share the 1450 A.M. frequency with WCEV,operates on 1690 Khz in a local marketing agreement with I Heart Comunications, which formerly operated a 1950s oldies station on 1690, using the call letters WRLL, signifying Real Oldies.
The share time on 1450 kHz began in 1980 resulting from an agreement between two applicants for the frequency which had been abandoned by WVON in the mid 1970s when WVON moved from 1450 to 1390 kHz. Classical music station WFMT-FM was allowed to simulcast its programming on 1450 KHz until the FCC awarded the frequency in 1980.
The oldest share time in Chicago was on 1240 kHz where WSBC, WEDC and WCRW shared that frequency since 1926. The share time ended in the late 1990s when the owner of WSBC bought WEDC and WCRW.
WLS and WENR shared the 890 KHZ frequency from the mid 1920s to 1954.
In 1954 the stations merged as WLS, 50 percent each owned by ABC Radio and The Prarie Farmer Newspaper. In 1959, ABC bought The Prarie Farmer to gain control of WLS and change the station's format from rural oriented to Top 40 music.
For about 10 years WAIT shared time on Sundays with WCBD, a religious station.
Although a separately owned station, WCBD broadcasts were conducted by WAIT engineers and annoucers. The share time lasted from the mid 1940s to 1959.
I will answer the part about channel 60 sharing airtime in the Chicago market. WPWR-TV was licensed to Aurora, IL, while WBBS was licensed to West Chicago, IL. From 1982 to 1985, WPWR-TV was on from 2:30am - 7pm, then WBBS was on from 7pm - 2:30am. Both stations transmitted from the Sears Tower. When WSNS was forced to find new programming, after ONTV went off the air in 1985, they affiliated with Spanish International Network (now Univision). That full time Spanish language affiliation hurt WBBS to the point that from 1985 to 1986, they scaled back their programing to only weekends, letting WPWR-TV to be on 24 hours during the week. In 1986, WPWR-TV bought out WBBS's license, making WPWR-TV a 24 hour station, before being sold in 1987 to become a 24 hour shopping channel to Home Shopping Club (now called Home Shopping Network, or HSN for short), while WPWR-TV bought the channel 50 license & had channel 50 reallocated to commercial, since it was originally non-commercial, & moved to Channel 50. Too bad that WPWR-TV is a shell of its former self, since Fox doesn't seem to care about how it's programmed today.
Now for radio, in the northern suburbs of Chicago, there are 2 stations that share the 88.3 frequency, & transmit from different locations. I don't know the arrangement, but there's WCLR, licensed to Arlington Heights (owned by EMF), & WHCM, licensed to Palatine (owned by William Rainey Harper College).
Anybody else look at the subject line and think this thread was going to be about WWV and WWVH on shortwave?
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