WLCY-TV 10 Largo

[jmtillery]

I realize this is a radio board, so asking a question about Tampa Bay TV might be a bit off-topic. However, since the former WLCY-TV was co-owned with the former WLCY-AM-FM, there is your radio "tie-in" connection.

My question is does anyone know why the former WLCY-TV 10 was re-licensed from Largo to Saint Petersburg, and how was it legally changed? When channel 10 was WLCY-TV owned by the Rahall's, channel 10 was licensed to Largo as that communitiy's only TV station. Changing its COL to Saint Petersburg gave Saint Petersburg a third TV station while leaving none for Largo. One could argue that WCLF-TV 22 Clearwater took channel 10's place for Largo, but WCLF is licensed to Clearwater and not Largo.

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

 

[azumanga]

My question is does anyone know why the former WLCY-TV 10 was re-licensed from Largo to Saint Petersburg, and how was it legally changed?

My guess had something to do with transmitter power -- until the late-1970s, the city-grade signal only made it as far as Largo, hence the Largo COL; at the time, the COL could only be a city or community within the station's city-grade signal area. After the new owners gave the station a new makeover, including an upgrade in transmitter power, it was able to make St. Pete its COL, as St. Pete now fell within the city-grade area.

 

[Wazzie]

I know it's off topic but I'd like to talk about the robbery at the Kwiky Mart on 49th Street in Gulfport. I know it's a bit off topic but they did have a radio playing in the cashier's booth at the time. ;D j/k Mark.

The whole COL issue in Pinellas is a non-issue. If most folks within 50 miles of the Howard Frankland are watching Channel 10 on their cable system, who really cares about the COL?

 

[drt]

I realize this is a radio board, so asking a question about Tampa Bay TV might be a bit off-topic. However, since the former WLCY-TV was co-owned with the former WLCY-AM-FM, there is your radio "tie-in" connection.

My question is does anyone know why the former WLCY-TV 10 was re-licensed from Largo to Saint Petersburg, and how was it legally changed? When channel 10 was WLCY-TV owned by the Rahall's, channel 10 was licensed to Largo as that communitiy's only TV station. Changing its COL to Saint Petersburg gave Saint Petersburg a third TV station while leaving none for Largo. One could argue that WCLF-TV 22 Clearwater took channel 10's place for Largo, but WCLF is licensed to Clearwater and not Largo.

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

Though, this is not radio per se; it is interesting as to how COL's are chosen (in radio as well).

I'm still trying to figure out why 103.5 (COL used to be Bradenton, tower, north of Bradenton,Snead Island) changed COL to Gulfport in s.w. Pinellas county when their tower and studios are now in Hillsborough county! ???

When channel 10 - WLCY first came on the air (I believe 1966), the FCC minimum space/mileage required between co-channels was stricter than now. Hence Channel 10 had to have their tower not at the TV antenna farm (where every TV station at the time had their towers, with the exception of WSUN channel 38), but about 30 miles n.n.w. of Riverview, just inside Pasco country in Holiday; also they had to have a short stick; their tower was limited at the time to 500 feet. This was necessary because of channel 10 in Miami (tower near Dade near the Broward/Miami/Dade county line).

WWSB (believe they were WXLT at the time, channel 40, Sarasota) came on the air in the early 70's as the ABC affiliate to serve the south bay area (including parts of St. Petersburg); of course in the late 60's and 70's paytv/cable wasn't as prevelent as it is today.

Now........ Wazzie, I want to know what radio station was playing at Gulfport's Kwicky Mart? If it was Q-105; I can think of at least one person on this list, that might start patronizing that Kwicky Mart!!

drt

 

[jmtillery]

Thanks for all the comments. I knew the initial reason WLCY-TV was licensed to Largo was because of the short-spacing with WPLG-TV 10 Miami requiring WLCY-TV to locate its tower North of Tampa Bay, which created a city grade signal that fell short of Saint Petersburg.

What I don't understand is how channel's 10's licensee was able to convince the FCC to re-license the station to Saint Petersburg, even though channel 10 upgraded its signal, power and tower HAAT, which already had channels 38 and 44 leaving no locally assigned TV service to Largo. I. E., Largo's only local TV service was taken and given to a community that already had two local TV services - WTTA-TV 38 and WTOG-TV 44.

Normally the FCC will never allow any licensee to take a community's only primary radio or only primary TV broadcast service and re-license it to another community unless a substitute channel is proposed and used as a replacement for the channel vacating the community. Low Power service and translators do not count as local broadcast service due to the fact that these services are licensed as secondary radio and TV services.

In this case WLCY-TV upgraded, became WTSP and was re-licensed to Saint Petersburg, leaving (theoretically) Largo with no local TV service and not dropping in an alrnate TV channel to replace channel 10.

(Sidenote) Wazzie, please do tell us about the Kwikie Mart robbery... Do you happen to know what station was playing on the radio in the cashier's booth and what song was on the air at the time of the robbery?

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

 

[w9wi]

Thanks for all the comments. I knew the initial reason WLCY-TV was licensed to Largo was because of the short-spacing with WPLG-TV 10 Miami requiring WLCY-TV to locate its tower North of Tampa Bay, which created a city grade signal that fell short of Saint Petersburg.

What I don't understand is how channel's 10's licensee was able to convince the FCC to re-license the station to Saint Petersburg, even though channel 10 upgraded its signal, power and tower HAAT, which already had channels 38 and 44 leaving no locally assigned TV service to Largo. I. E., Largo's only local TV service was taken and given to a community that already had two local TV services - WTTA-TV 38 and WTOG-TV 44.

Normally the FCC will never allow any licensee to take a community's only primary radio or only primary TV broadcast service and re-license it to another community unless a substitute channel is proposed and used as a replacement for the channel vacating the community. Low Power service and translators do not count as local broadcast service due to the fact that these services are licensed as secondary radio and TV services.

This one is awfully difficult to explain.

The channel wasn't in the original allocation tables. It was dropped in sometime between 1952 and 1965 - and allotted to St. Petersburg. Under current rules, channel 10 couldn't be allocated to St. Petersburg if there wasn't some site where it could operate at full (2,000'/316kw) facilities without interfering with WPLG and still provide a city-grade across St. Petersburg. Any station then built on the channel would have to provide a city grade across St. Petersburg and be at least 220 miles from WPLG.

At the time, a station's main studio had to be in the city of license, so maybe the station built its studio in Largo & had to change the COL to match -- but in the 1966 Broadcasting Yearbook the station's address is listed as 2429 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg. (maybe that was just a mailing address and the main studio was elsewhere?)

The minimum distance separation rules for analog have not changed since 1966 - it's still 220 miles for VHF stations on the Gulf Coast. So it's not a situation of the FCC changing rules to allow the station to move closer to St. Petersburg. (there does seem to be some kind of waiver in place as today, WTSP and WPLG are 219 miles apart. Maybe in the days before computers the calculation of distance was a bit less accurate!)

The issue seems to be the station's low tower. According to the 1966 Yearbook WLCY-TV's antenna was only 500 feet above average terrain - 149 meters. Using the FCC's coverage prediction curves (as converted to a web application on the Commission's website) 316kw/149m is predicted to provide a city-grade signal to only 40.36km, about 24 miles. The distance between the station's current tower and the "reference coordinates" for St. Petersburg is a bit more than 50km. Assuming the tower wasn't any further south in 1966 than it is now, WLCY-TV wouldn't have been able to provide a city-grade across St. Petersburg.

(under current rules I think the FCC would probably have made them put up a taller tower! There wasn't any kind of military aviation going on up there in the 60s that would have precluded a taller tower? It's even further from McDill AFB than the other Tampa towers.)

The station has since of course put up a much taller tower -- 458m. According to Curves the city-grade contour now extends out more than 62km, easily covering St. Petersburg.

As you say, under current rules they couldn't have gotten it reallocated from Largo once they got it reallocated to Largo. Seems to me that prohibition doesn't date back to the beginning though. For one example, the channel 6 station in Milwaukee was originally allocated to the northern suburb of Whitefish Bay. Sometime around 1960 they got the allocation changed to Milwaukee, even though that left Whitefish Bay without any channels and added a channel to a city that already had six.

(though the strange thing about that case was that the channel was allocated to Whitefish Bay in the first place because the city of Milwaukee was too close to an existing channel 6 station in Iowa; Whitefish Bay was just far enough further north to meet the spacing requirements.

But that policy should have prevented the allocation of channel 10 to St. Petersburg, because regardless of the tower site, the city of St. Petersburg isn't 220 miles from WPLG's transmitter. The channel could have been allocated to Largo, but not to St. Petersburg where it actually was allocated.

Obviously the rule changed sometime between 1956 and 1965.)

 

[rfrus]

WLCY-TV's original studios were on Central Avenue. I have pictures I took there. They moved from there to their current location on Gandy Blvd. They really destroyed 1380's signal to the south when they built that TV building on the AM ground system. The original 500 foot tower was less than 50 feet from their current tower, they have always had the transmitter at their current site in Holiday.

That station is jinxed. It has always been a fourth rate station and never done well. They should have taken the DTV opportunity to move to a UHF channel and move to Riverview with everyone else. I heard they stayed on channel 10 because they are so cheap, they wanted the lower power bills at VHF.

 

[w9wi]

WLCY-TV's original studios were on Central Avenue. I have pictures I took there. They moved from there to their current location on Gandy Blvd. They really destroyed 1380's signal to the south when they built that TV building on the AM ground system. The original 500 foot tower was less than 50 feet from their current tower, they have always had the transmitter at their current site in Holiday.

That station is jinxed. It has always been a fourth rate station and never done well. They should have taken the DTV opportunity to move to a UHF channel and move to Riverview with everyone else. I heard they stayed on channel 10 because they are so cheap, they wanted the lower power bills at VHF.

Well, that answers a couple of questions, thanks!

The spacing rules are different for digital. I certainly don't know but it seems quite possible they could have operated on channel 10 from Riverview. Of course that would have meant either building a new tower or leasing space from someone else, so it still would have cost more than doing what they're doing.

 

[Kabrich]

What makes you think that St. Petersburg had 3 TV licenses assigned to it when Channel 10 moved their COL to St. Pete?

This was certainly the first VHF service for St. Petersburg - if not the first TV Station license overall, which would certainly qualify it to move.

 

[w9wi]

What makes you think that St. Petersburg had 3 TV licenses assigned to it when Channel 10 moved their COL to St. Pete?

This was certainly the first VHF service for St. Petersburg - if not the first TV Station license overall, which would certainly qualify it to move.

WSUN-TV 38 was there first. I don't know who else he meant - channels 3, 8, and 13 are all licensed to Tampa but I don't know Florida TV history well enough to be sure there wasn't a second UHF station authorized in St. Pete at the time.

It could (under current rules) have moved *from* St. Pete *to* Largo, but (again under current rules) it couldn't move *back* to St. Pete, because it would have cost Largo their only TV station. Didn't really matter how many channels St. Petersburg had (or even if it had any), the problem is that they couldn't remove the only station *from* Largo.

 

[David Sharp]

WSUN-TV 38 was there first. I don't know who else he meant - channels 3, 8, and 13 are all licensed to Tampa but I don't know Florida TV history well enough to be sure there wasn't a second UHF station authorized in St. Pete at the time.

He would have been thinking of WTOG Channel 44. Don't know when they went to air, though.

 

[jmtillery]

When channel 10 was re-licensed to Saint Petersburg in 1981, WTOG-TV 44 was also on the air, so there is the third TV station I gave reference to in addition to what is now WTTA-TV 38. Add that to channel 10 and you have have three TV channels assigned and licensed to Saint Petersburg, Florida.

WEDU-TV 3, WFLA-TV 8 and WTVT-TV 13 had nothing to do with it as they are licensed to Tampa. WCLF-TV 22 is licensed to Clearwater. The only other TV station I am aware is TV 50; the call letters escape me at the moment.

Mark Tillery,
Ocala Florida
[email protected]

 

[jmtillery]

What makes you think that St. Petersburg had 3 TV licenses assigned to it when Channel 10 moved their COL to St. Pete?

This was certainly the first VHF service for St. Petersburg - if not the first TV Station license overall, which would certainly qualify it to move.

WSUN-TV 38 was there first. I don't know who else he meant - channels 3, 8, and 13 are all licensed to Tampa but I don't know Florida TV history well enough to be sure there wasn't a second UHF station authorized in St. Pete at the time.

It could (under current rules) have moved *from* St. Pete *to* Largo, but (again under current rules) it couldn't move *back* to St. Pete, because it would have cost Largo their only TV station. Didn't really matter how many channels St. Petersburg had (or even if it had any), the problem is that they couldn't remove the only station *from* Largo.

BINGO!!! That was the point I was trying to make from the start. Under current rules the FCC will never allow any licensee to re-license a community's ONLY TV service to another community regardless of how many, if any, TV services are assigned to the desired new city of license... Apparently the rules were different in 1981 (when WTSP was re-licensed from Largo to Saint Petersburg) which allowed an only service to be re-allocated and re-licensed to another community.

I believe I am getting a much clearer "picture" of the whole scenario now. If channel 10 was originally allotted to Saint Petersburg but due to technical and legal issues was re-assigned to Largo, once those previous issues were "resolved", the legal argument must have been that channel 10 should be re-allotted to its original community as not to "deprive" Saint Petersburg of its ONLY VHF TV service.

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

 

[Parttimer]

Especially since, coming from the north, the city-grade signal over St. Pete would still be city-grade over Largo.

 

[azumanga]

The only other TV station I am aware is TV 50; the call letters escape me at the moment.

That would be WFTT, the Telefutura station licensed to Tampa, and broadcasting from Riverview.

 

[sbe1]

You also have CH 62 which has studios in Tampa. This station was moved here from Venice several years ago. Also you have CH 32 in lakeland with studios in Tampa

 

[billalm]

Add this to the discussion... Channel 38 was off air for most of the 80's. So even though it was at one time St. Petersburg's WSUN-TV, it was OFF for some time and returned to the air in the late 80's as WTTA.

 

[jmtillery]

Add this to the discussion... Channel 38 was off air for most of the 80's. So even though it was at one time St. Petersburg's WSUN-TV, it was OFF for some time and returned to the air in the late 80's as WTTA.

That was one of my points that Saint Petersburg had two TV allotments, that being channels 38 and 44, before Largo's ONLY TV assignment - channel 10 - was re-licensed from Largo to Saint Petersburg; and even though channel 38 was off the air during the 80s, channel 38 was still assigned as a vacant "unused" TV channel along with channel 44 licensed as WTOG-TV. With the channel 10 reassignment, it left Largo with NO local TV allottment while it gave Saint Petersburg a third TV channel.

My original question was how did channel 10's licensee at the time convince the FCC to reassign an only service to one community (WLCY-TV 10 Largo) and give that only channel to a community that already had two TV assignemnets (vacant channel 38 and WTOG-TV 44 Saint Petersburg). Under current FCC rules that would never happen although the FCC will allow taking a second or third channel in one communty and reassigning it to another community as a First Service if said second community has no locally licensed or assigned vacant TV channels.

It was suggested by one poster that when channel 10 was first "dropped-in" back in the 50s, the FCC initially intended that channel to go to Saint Petersburg, but due to technical reasons preventing channel 10 from providing a city grade contour over Saint Petersburg, it was licensed to Largo instead as channel 10 did provide a city grade over Largo. Once those technical issues were resolved enabling channel 10 to provide a city grade over Saint Petersburg, channel 10 was re-licensed under older FCC rules since Saint Petersburg was the original intended city or allottment for that channel under the FCC rules in effect at that time... At least that is what I am now understanding from the various comments on this subject...

Again, I appreciate all the input and comments as this has been one of those topics that I have often wondered about...

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

 

[Wazzie]

(Sidenote) Wazzie, please do tell us about the Kwikie Mart robbery... Do you happen to know what station was playing on the radio in the cashier's booth and what song was on the air at the time of the robbery?

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

Sorry for the delay Mark but I wanted to double check my sources (something news doesn't do anymore). I have it from two reliable sources that it was the 60's channel on Sirius and Cher's "Bang Bang" was playing. Hope that helps you sleep at night.
:

Waz

 

[Kabrich]

What makes you think that St. Petersburg had 3 TV licenses assigned to it when Channel 10 moved their COL to St. Pete?

This was certainly the first VHF service for St. Petersburg - if not the first TV Station license overall, which would certainly qualify it to move.

WSUN-TV 38 was there first. I don't know who else he meant - channels 3, 8, and 13 are all licensed to Tampa but I don't know Florida TV history well enough to be sure there wasn't a second UHF station authorized in St. Pete at the time.

It could (under current rules) have moved *from* St. Pete *to* Largo, but (again under current rules) it couldn't move *back* to St. Pete, because it would have cost Largo their only TV station. Didn't really matter how many channels St. Petersburg had (or even if it had any), the problem is that they couldn't remove the only station *from* Largo.

BINGO!!! That was the point I was trying to make from the start. Under current rules the FCC will never allow any licensee to re-license a community's ONLY TV service to another community regardless of how many, if any, TV services are assigned to the desired new city of license... Apparently the rules were different in 1981 (when WTSP was re-licensed from Largo to Saint Petersburg) which allowed an only service to be re-allocated and re-licensed to another community.

I believe I am getting a much clearer "picture" of the whole scenario now. If channel 10 was originally allotted to Saint Petersburg but due to technical and legal issues was re-assigned to Largo, once those previous issues were "resolved", the legal argument must have been that channel 10 should be re-allotted to its original community as not to "deprive" Saint Petersburg of its ONLY VHF TV service.

Mark Tillery,
Ocala, Florida
[email protected]

Yes, you can change a COL from a station that will be left with no COL if the new COL has no COL either - especially if it serves more people, as St. Pete does over Largo.