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TV Station's Licensed City Choice

B

bertie343

I've noticed that some TV stations are registered in a city where they have no facilities, studios, or transmitters in. Why do they do that and how do they choose the city to license in? For example WNJU (Telemundo 47) is licensed in Linden, NJ but their studios are in Fort Lee, NJ and their transmitter is atop the WTC.

Sorry if this is the wrong board, I couldn't figure out where this should go.
 
If it's like FM radio, it's because the allocations for the city are filled, and they are providing "first visual service to West Podunk".


bertie343 said:
I've noticed that some TV stations are registered in a city where they have no facilities, studios, or transmitters in. Why do they do that and how do they choose the city to license in? For example WNJU (Telemundo 47) is licensed in Linden, NJ but their studios are in Fort Lee, NJ and their transmitter is atop the WTC.

Sorry if this is the wrong board, I couldn't figure out where this should go.
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Its all controlled by the FCC. Every aspect you gave has to be approved by the government. Several radio stations, including Z-100, are licensed to New Jersey, but their studios & offices are in NYC.
 
I don't think television stations have ever been required to have actual facilities in their community of license. The requirement is to provide what used to be called a "Grade A" signal to the community of license, which gives a decent amount of flexibility for placing a tower.

For example, WTWO is licensed to Terre Haute, Indiana. But their studio and transmission facility has been based in nearby Farmersburg since its sign on in the 1960s.

EDIT: And as far as how cities are selected for stations to license in: Back in the old days, a bureaucrat at the FCC would publish a list of channels and communities which could be authorized to have television stations. Then would-be broadcasters would apply to operate those facilities. As an example, Jacksonville Illinois was granted an allocation for channel 14. Jacksonville was a fairly small city, having a population of about 20,000 in 1960. It is located roughly halfway between two larger cities, Springfield and Quincy. A group of entrepreneurs from Jacksonville decided it would be possible to serve Jacksonville, Springfield, and Quincy from one tower site. They built a tower of 1600 feet and received a 5MW license from the FCC. And failed almost immediately, as many UHF stations still struggled in that era. Channel 14 in Jacksonville would broadcast for barely two years before going bankrupt.

Many stations are still on the air, licensed to smaller communities within a market area. For example WTTV was a long-time WB/CW affiliate until earning the CBS affiliation a few years ago. Also in Indianapolis, the MyNet affiliate, WNDY is licensed to Marion, Indiana.

With the digital and channel sharing changes, the rules have gotten a little murky, so decode all of this with a 1990s perspective.
 
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WNCN, the CBS affiliate for the Raleigh-Durham NC area is licensed to Goldsboro, NC, which is 53 miles from Raleigh. Their tower is in nearby Garner, NC and I believe WRAL-TV, WRAL-FM, and a few other TV & radio stations all share that same tower.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I don't think television stations have ever been required to have actual facilities in their community of license. The requirement is to provide what used to be called a "Grade A" signal to the community of license, which gives a decent amount of flexibility for placing a tower.

For example, WTWO is licensed to Terre Haute, Indiana. But their studio and transmission facility has been based in nearby Farmersburg since its sign on in the 1960s.

EDIT: And as far as how cities are selected for stations to license in: Back in the old days, a bureaucrat at the FCC would publish a list of channels and communities which could be authorized to have television stations. Then would-be broadcasters would apply to operate those facilities. As an example, Jacksonville Illinois was granted an allocation for channel 14. Jacksonville was a fairly small city, having a population of about 20,000 in 1960. It is located roughly halfway between two larger cities, Springfield and Quincy. A group of entrepreneurs from Jacksonville decided it would be possible to serve Jacksonville, Springfield, and Quincy from one tower site. They built a tower of 1600 feet and received a 5MW license from the FCC. And failed almost immediately, as many UHF stations still struggled in that era. Channel 14 in Jacksonville would broadcast for barely two years before going bankrupt.

Many stations are still on the air, licensed to smaller communities within a market area. For example WTTV was a long-time WB/CW affiliate until earning the CBS affiliation a few years ago. Also in Indianapolis, the MyNet affiliate, WNDY is licensed to Marion, Indiana.

With the digital and channel sharing changes, the rules have gotten a little murky, so decode all of this with a 1990s perspective.
Click to expand...

WTTV had to keep an active Bloomington studio from the time it moved most of its operations to Indy in the mid 1950s until sometime in the late 1970s. It had opened the studio/transmitter facility located behind the Tarzian plant in 1952, and kept the studio open after the transmitter was moved from there (on Channel 10) to Cloverdale (moving to Channel 4) in 1954, and then to Trafalgar in 1957. It still has to keep its transmitter in Trafalgar, which puts a city-grade signal into both Bloomington and the southern 2/3 of Indianapolis. But since the money is in the northern third of the market, they had to buy a station in Kokomo and make it a satellite (WTTK/29). Now that WTTK transmits from the main Indy antenna farm on the NW side of the city, does it still properly cover Kokomo, or has that requirement gone away? Same with WNDY, licensed to Marion but also with its tower in NW Indy?

As far as WTWO goes, Farmersburg IN is only 15-20 miles south of Terre Haute. IIRC a station's physical location being within 25 miles of its city of license was OK when WTWO went on the air in 1965.

Jacksonville IL's WJJY-TV/14 was a sad story from Day One. It ended when the tower came crashing down due to the heavy antenna combined with a severe ice storm. See also: WAND-TV Decatur, who's tower suffered the same fate but went back on the air.
 
The story I had heard at the time of the launch of WTTK was that they were building that signal to better serve cable systems in the area North of Indianapolis (I would venture to guess any north suburban Indy systems not served by fiberoptics, which I'm not sure was quite a thing yet). One could tell the difference when WTTK was off the air and the cable system reverted to the staticky and occasionally E-Skip interference prone Channel 4 signal in places like Lafayette.

I once worked in the Hannibal-Quincy market (KGRC) and though Hannibal-licensed KHQA (TV)'s operations were in Quincy along with sister WTAD and WQCY radio, I used to pass a KHQA facility on the way to work in Hannibal. I'm not sure what it was used for, maybe a sales office of for recording public affairs programming. Nonetheless it was there, whether by a legal requirement or not.





KeithE4 said:
WTTV had to keep an active Bloomington studio from the time it moved most of its operations to Indy in the mid 1950s until sometime in the late 1970s. It had opened the studio/transmitter facility located behind the Tarzian plant in 1952, and kept the studio open after the transmitter was moved from there (on Channel 10) to Cloverdale (moving to Channel 4) in 1954, and then to Trafalgar in 1957. It still has to keep its transmitter in Trafalgar, which puts a city-grade signal into both Bloomington and the southern 2/3 of Indianapolis. But since the money is in the northern third of the market, they had to buy a station in Kokomo and make it a satellite (WTTK/29). Now that WTTK transmits from the main Indy antenna farm on the NW side of the city, does it still properly cover Kokomo, or has that requirement gone away? Same with WNDY, licensed to Marion but also with its tower in NW Indy?

As far as WTWO goes, Farmersburg IN is only 15-20 miles south of Terre Haute. IIRC a station's physical location being within 25 miles of its city of license was OK when WTWO went on the air in 1965.

Jacksonville IL's WJJY-TV/14 was a sad story from Day One. It ended when the tower came crashing down due to the heavy antenna combined with a severe ice storm. See also: WAND-TV Decatur, who's tower suffered the same fate but went back on the air.
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bertie343 said:
I've noticed that some TV stations are registered in a city where they have no facilities, studios, or transmitters in. Why do they do that and how do they choose the city to license in? For example WNJU (Telemundo 47) is licensed in Linden, NJ but their studios are in Fort Lee, NJ and their transmitter is atop the WTC.

Sorry if this is the wrong board, I couldn't figure out where this should go.
Click to expand...

Well Its like KABC-TV Los Angeles its offices are really in Glendale but its licensed to Los Angeles by the FCC or

KOVR Stockton but its offices are in Sacramento its all by FCC.

KQEH-TV San Jose the PBS Affiliate in San Francisco is really in the KQED office in SF.
 
Don't forget the KHJ9 to KCAL9 City of License issue. I remember lots of stories of how RKO and when Disney ran the first years of KCAL9 had to include Norwalk in the city of License along with Los Angeles because of the FCC reasons. Also RKO was accused of being an unfit license holder for their stations.

Fidelity Television wanted the FCC to include Norwalk for the city of License for KHJ initially and Disney had to list Norwalk in it's City of License during the time they ran KCAL9 in the early 1990's. This was until that was lifted around 1992-1993 timeframe though.
 
gr8oldies said:
The story I had heard at the time of the launch of WTTK was that they were building that signal to better serve cable systems in the area North of Indianapolis (I would venture to guess any north suburban Indy systems not served by fiberoptics, which I'm not sure was quite a thing yet). One could tell the difference when WTTK was off the air and the cable system reverted to the staticky and occasionally E-Skip interference prone Channel 4 signal in places like Lafayette.
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Back in the analog days, WTTK's transmitter was located about 20 miles south of Kokomo (Tipton IN, IIRC). It not only put a decent signal into Kokomo and Indy's northern suburbs, but it was far closer to Lafayette than WTTV's transmitter in Trafalgar (about 25 miles south of Indy, 25 miles NE of Bloomington, and 80 miles SE of Lafayette).

It also put a weak-but-viewable signal into much of the Chicago area. WTTK was how I watched IU games between WCAE's demise and WYIN picking up the games in the early '90s.
 
WGTA/ch. 32 in the Atlanta DMA is an oddity as it is licensed to and transmits from Toccoa, some 90 miles NE of Atlanta and geographically in the Greenville/Spartanburg SC/Asheville NC DMA where it was originally designated when it was WNEG. The station moved their business offices to Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb to the northeast.
 
WMYT, the My Network station in Charlotte, is actually licensed to Rock Hill SC. I don't remember where their tower was before reallocation when it became as subchannel of WJZY, but as a station licensed to SC, it is the official Charlotte-area station for the SC Lottery.
 
In a different sense, New Jersey Lottery drawings air on channel 11 in NY City and channel 17 in Philadelphia. I know that used to air on the old NJN public television service.

WVIT-TV (NBC) channel 30 is licensed to New Britain, CT. They've had a West Hartford studio and a Farmington transmitter from nearly day one. I believe they DID have a presence in downtown New Britain when they started in winter of 1953. I'm a New Britain native, yet have never seen anything with channel 30 in the city during my 48 years.

The only commercial TV station who's actually IN Hartford today is WTIC-TV (FOX) channel 61 of Hartford. WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 still has a Hartford C.O.L., but moved south down I-91 to Rocky Hill 10 plus years ago. The WFSB-TV transmitter, then and now, has always been on Avon Mountain, on the West Hartford/Avon line.
 
KICU-TV has the city of license of San Jose but its studios and offices are in the KTVU Fox 2 Studios in Oakland. KICU's city of License was at a time when its previous owners Cox and Ralph Wilson did have offices in San Jose.

WWOR Secaucus was a at a time when RKO's TV broadcasting licenses were being questioned.

WNET Newark the PBS affiliate in New York has its city of license in Newark, NJ but its identified as a station in NYC though.
 
WLVI-TV (CW) channel 56 in the Boston/Worcester (Manchester) market is licensed to Cambridge, MA. The Wiki article on the station doesn't say why the COL is Cambridge. Unless it had to do with cross-ownership of radio stations when they started? :confused:
 
KML-224 said:
WLVI-TV (CW) channel 56 in the Boston/Worcester (Manchester) market is licensed to Cambridge, MA. The Wiki article on the station doesn't say why the COL is Cambridge. Unless it had to do with cross-ownership of radio stations when they started? :confused:
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The original owner was Kaiser Broadcasting, which also owned WCAS, a 250-watt AM daytimer in Cambridge, so maybe you've hit on the answer. Under Kaiser, WLVI was called WKBG.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I don't think television stations have ever been required to have actual facilities in their community of license. The requirement is to provide what used to be called a "Grade A" signal to the community of license, which gives a decent amount of flexibility for placing a tower.
Click to expand...

There once was a requirement for a "main studio" in the city of license, although the FCC would grant waivers under at least some circumstances. The requirement that the "main studio" be in the city of license was, however, eliminated in the eighties in favor of a looser requirement for a "main studio" within the community grade contour of the station's transmitter. That rule was further loosened over time, and has now been completely eliminated.

As for the signal over the city of license, that would be the "community grade contour".
 
bertie343 said:
I've noticed that some TV stations are registered in a city where they have no facilities, studios, or transmitters in. Why do they do that and how do they choose the city to license in? For example WNJU (Telemundo 47) is licensed in Linden, NJ but their studios are in Fort Lee, NJ and their transmitter is atop the WTC.
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When the original owners put the station on the air, channel 47 was allocated to New Brunswick NJ but they wanted to operate out of Newark. By the rules of the time, they were allowed to choose a city of license within a certain distance of New Brunswick. A station licensed to Linden would satisfy that rule and be close enough to Newark to allow the owners to have the studio and transmitter locations that they wanted.
 
WJKT Fox 16 in Jackson, TN has an office and possibly studio that is used very little or none in Jackson but it is actually operated by WLMT CW 30 in Memphis and the tower is near Alamo where I live about 20 miles NW. Now that they're owned by Nexstar and WLMT is owned by Tegna I don't know if anything will change with that.
 
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