Maybe Scott can unravel this FCC move from long ago

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 11:29:47 -0500, kvahey@comcast.net said:

> What is unclear is how the FCC revoked the channel 2 license owned
> by Zenith to allow Paley to move to channel 2.

Zenith's channel 2 was never licensed commercially; that may have been
one reason.  According to
<http://www.chicagotelevision.com/channels1XX5.htm>:

	The folks at Zenith Radio Corp. were none too pleased by this
	move. Zenith had been operating its Phonevision experimental
	programming on channel 2. Cmndr. E.F. McDonald, president of
	Zenith protested the FCC decision, claiming it had been the
	sole occupant of channel 2 since 1939. But the FCC didn't see
	it Zenith's way. On July 5, 1953 WBBM-TV moved to channel 2
	and Chicago's channel 4 went dark.

	In a September 9, 1956 article of the Chicago Tribune about
	the three major networks warming up to the idea of airing
	their "spectacular" programming via a pay television system
	instead of through their normal operations, McDonald, still
	licking his wounds after losing channel 2 to CBS, blasted the
	networks new position stating that true pay television would
	provide the viewer with programming that conventional
	sponsorship could not offer. Though Zenith never operated
	another television station in Chicago, it did donate it's
	facilities to WTTW

-GAWollman