Silent Sticks in Georgia

[WJEPPD]

I have noticed that Georgia has alot of silent AM and FM sticks. I wonder why Georgia has so many as compared to other states. I pounced on the one I am buying now due to its proximity to a larger market just 1/2 hour away. Anybody have any insight into why so many silent sticks. I have 2 theories one involves lightning strikes and yet another involves religious organizations who just can't keep them functional etc...

 

[kyscott]

I have noticed that Georgia has alot of silent AM and FM sticks. I wonder why Georgia has so many as compared to other states. I pounced on the one I am buying now due to its proximity to a larger market just 1/2 hour away. Anybody have any insight into why so many silent sticks. I have 2 theories one involves lightning strikes and yet another involves religious organizations who just can't keep them functional etc...

These are the silent stations according to the FCC's website:
WDGR Dahlonega, WJEP Ochlocknee, WGTA Summerville, WRFV Valdosta, and three translators in Blairsville, Brunswick and Elberton. California and Florida have a whole lot more silent stations. I don't think your theory hold water or there would be a whole lot more silent stations. Normally, when stations take a fatal lightning strike, they don't wait for insurance adjusters before returning to the air.

 

[WJEPPD]

I have noticed that Georgia has alot of silent AM and FM sticks. I wonder why Georgia has so many as compared to other states. I pounced on the one I am buying now due to its proximity to a larger market just 1/2 hour away. Anybody have any insight into why so many silent sticks. I have 2 theories one involves lightning strikes and yet another involves religious organizations who just can't keep them functional etc...

These are the silent stations according to the FCC's website:
WDGR Dahlonega, WJEP Ochlocknee, WGTA Summerville, WRFV Valdosta, and three translators in Blairsville, Brunswick and Elberton. California and Florida have a whole lot more silent stations. I don't think your theory hold water or there would be a whole lot more silent stations. Normally, when stations take a fatal lightning strike, they don't wait for insurance adjusters before returning to the air.

Sounds like you took a shot at me regarding the insurance, oh well. California and Florida have alot more people than Georgia. It just seems that per capita there seem to be alot more silent sticks. Now with the addition of WCGA more and more are going dark. We are so you know, just a day away or so from going back to power...

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

WDGR in Dahlonega is sitting silent as their CP application to relocate to Lawrenceville winds its way through the FCC bureacracy.

It became available not because of lightning strike, but they did suffer a fire in the studio.It changed hands once. Then it was purchased by the Korean interests. Then came transmitter damage when rain water fed back through an exhaust fan and into the transmitter.

It is supposed to wake up some future morning in Lawrenceville and speaking Korean.

 

[ricksegers]

There have been a bunch of stations go dark in the last several years but to my understanding they have been dark for so long the FCC cancelled the licenses and they are no longer available. There were AM stations in Tifton, Ashburn, Ocilla and Sylvester that would be included in that group and there is probably four times that many or more over the state. I had an idea to link them all together and had my FCC attorney at the time several years ago look into it and none of them were available.

 

[Witchlover]

There have been a bunch of stations go dark in the last several years but to my understanding they have been dark for so long the FCC cancelled the licenses and they are no longer available. There were AM stations in Tifton, Ashburn, Ocilla and Sylvester that would be included in that group and there is probably four times that many or more over the state. I had an idea to link them all together and had my FCC attorney at the time several years ago look into it and none of them were available.

Any idea why they weren't available? Assuming the stations went dark for business reasons, one should think that the licenses would be available to new applicants as soon as the FCC determined the licenses had been abandoned. If they went dark due to fire or weather damage, and the licensees did not effect repairs in a timely manner, the FCC would vacate the licenses. From what you say here, this does not seem to be so. I'm probably missing something simple and basic here ... what is it?

 

[SuperQ]

Once a daytimer's license is deleted it can never come back. You could only file to return a full timer during an open window. If you want one, better get it before it gets the death penalty.

 

[kyscott]

There have been a bunch of stations go dark in the last several years but to my understanding they have been dark for so long the FCC cancelled the licenses and they are no longer available. There were AM stations in Tifton, Ashburn, Ocilla and Sylvester that would be included in that group and there is probably four times that many or more over the state. I had an idea to link them all together and had my FCC attorney at the time several years ago look into it and none of them were available.

Any idea why they weren't available? Assuming the stations went dark for business reasons, one should think that the licenses would be available to new applicants as soon as the FCC determined the licenses had been abandoned. If they went dark due to fire or weather damage, and the licensees did not effect repairs in a timely manner, the FCC would vacate the licenses. From what you say here, this does not seem to be so. I'm probably missing something simple and basic here ... what is it?

I have already been through this with a dark and seemingly abandoned station. The FCC's policy is that if the station is dark for longer than 12 months, the license will get revoked. However the allocation remains. That frequency would then be auctioned off in the next scheduled auction for that service. The FCC has no interest is giving the license to a party interested is servicing the public, they care about their bottom line. Which is why they have gone to this stupid auction policy.

 

[ricksegers]

I could not remember all the details due to the length of time but most of the ones I was looking at were daytimers and the licenses were deleted to "clean up the AM band." Most of the markets are now being served by FM stations many of whom were put in under Rule 80-90 that junked up the FM band.

 

[Witchlover]

There have been a bunch of stations go dark in the last several years but to my understanding they have been dark for so long the FCC cancelled the licenses and they are no longer available. There were AM stations in Tifton, Ashburn, Ocilla and Sylvester that would be included in that group and there is probably four times that many or more over the state. I had an idea to link them all together and had my FCC attorney at the time several years ago look into it and none of them were available.

Any idea why they weren't available? Assuming the stations went dark for business reasons, one should think that the licenses would be available to new applicants as soon as the FCC determined the licenses had been abandoned. If they went dark due to fire or weather damage, and the licensees did not effect repairs in a timely manner, the FCC would vacate the licenses. From what you say here, this does not seem to be so. I'm probably missing something simple and basic here ... what is it?

I have already been through this with a dark and seemingly abandoned station. The FCC's policy is that if the station is dark for longer than 12 months, the license will get revoked. However the allocation remains. That frequency would then be auctioned off in the next scheduled auction for that service. The FCC has no interest is giving the license to a party interested is servicing the public, they care about their bottom line. Which is why they have gone to this stupid auction policy.

Well, I was missing something simple and basic: Broadcasting in the public interest is little more than a cliché these days. It is all about the money.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Abandoned stations have no support group, no advocacy group.

Broadcasters in other markets have no concern or interest seeing an abandoned station kept alive.

Broadcasters in the market or near the market may be glad to have a little less competition.

IF, IF the market has promise, you can assume potential buyers are tracking down the owner of the dark station and making offers, asking what it would take to acquire the station, etc.

If someone is going to wring their hands and be concerned about service to the public rather than just dollars, there is ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE who have an interest, but for the most part they have no idea how the game is play or what to do. That would be the people in the community where the dark station sleeps. That would be true particularly if there is no other station in town. There is no requirement that the station owner run a legal notice in the local paper or tack it to the courthouse door announcing that "Station X is no longer operating and the license will be terminated permanently on such and such date unless some party comes forward and files with the FCC and negotiates with me."

If I were going to argue for a rule change, I would consider the possibility that the FCC should be required to make public notice announcement in a community that "If no applicant(s) come forward in the next 60 days and apply for this existing license, it will be cancelled as of xx/xx/xx.)"

There have to be a number of communities that have awakened to the fact that they used to have a radio station and now they don't and wonder what if anything they could have done about it.

 

[Witchlover]

I agree. I think that if a station is about to go dark, every effort ought to be made to keep the station on the air and in the community. That being said, I think allowing just anyone to acquire a distressed station dooms the whole enterprise to ultimate failure. If some way can be found to transfer an existing license to a new holder with a viable business plan and sufficient assets to make it work over the long term, then everyone benefits. The problem is that most of the citizens in a community about to lose its "voice" may simply not have the means to acquire these stations, nor the ability to run them once acquired. What then, do we convert every distressed local station into a non-profit enterprise, dependent on donations and grants to stay afloat? Do local governments acquire failing stations to keep them in the community? Just how do we go about keeping these valuable community assets on the air?

Then there is the mindset of the government. Just as it appears the FAA would love to see the demise of General Aviation in favor of the major commercial airlines, it seems the FCC is not interested in truly local broadcasters, preferring to structure it's regulations to the advantage of the handful of clusters which today control the industry.

Remember that about 45 years ago, the FCC was unwilling even to allow citizens to participate in the process (they were referred to in Commission documents as "interlopers") until they were ordered to do so by the Supreme Court.

The government detests the governed, to put it succinctly. Small-town America just isn't that important, and if some small community loses its only radio station, well ... so what?

 

[ricksegers]

I spent the better part of my life in a small, rural community that had a powerful little 1000 watt daytimer (where Art Sutton and I both started) for many years. What killed it is what is making business of any kind a real struggle. The fast food joints and one or two strip centers on the main road with the CVS, a couple of nail salons and maybe a grocery store aren't enough to pay the light bill. If there is a car dealer, his money goes into the larger newspapers and nearby TV, cable and otherwise. The station remained viable as long as the town was viable. In some of these dark station communities, only an idiot would poor money down a rat hole and try to put one on the air. If you're trying, more power to you, but in many cases it's the community that caused the station to go dark not poor ownership/management. All the locally owned downtown stores are gone because everyone works in a nearby city and their only link to the town is pay taxes, send the kids to school, and maybe vote. Many of them don't even attend church in the community any more.

 

[Witchlover]

I've seen it happen: Locals bypassing the hardware store on main street and driving to the big box out on the interstate to buy whatever they need, and tuning into a station in the nearest city while not even bothering to check what's on their local datime station. After a while, both local businesses close, and those same people will complain that their town is dying. Speaking as one who has been called on the carpet for forgetting to give the school lunchroom menu every fifteen minutes, I miss small-town stations, and I feel just a little sad when I hear that another has gone dark.