Little-noted callsign change

[Dan.Strassberg]

If CBS owns a station that uses the WBMX-FM calls, why is it necessary
for them to warehouse the unsuffixed WBMX calls? By virtue of having a
station that uses the WBMX-FM calls, won't CBS have the oldest
continuously in-use instance of the WBMX root call sign, even if they
don't own a station called WBMX-<nothing>? I thought that the licensee
that has the oldest continuously in-use instance of a root call sign
(suffixed, unsuffixed, or both) must consent to any other licensee
using that root call sign, whether in unsuffixed or suffixed form.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org>
To: <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 8:13 PM
Subject: Little-noted callsign change


> CBS has changed WBMX to WBMX-FM, with the WBMX (unsuffixed) calls
> being warehoused on an X-bander in Charlotte.
>
>>From this, I assume that the Great Switcheroo will be arranged as
> follows:
>
> First, change WBMX-FM to WBZ-FM.
> Second, swap WBMX and WBCN.
>
> AIUI, the FCC's callsign reservation system doesn't allow for swaps
> involving three stations, only two, so this dodge is necessary to
> protect someone else from grabbing either WBMX or WBCN in the time
> it
> takes to enter the second call change.  (The presumed goal being to
> warehouse the WBCN calls out-of-market to keep someone else from
> bringing them back to Boston in competition with WZLX, just as the
> WROR calls were sent out to Michigan when 98.5 became WBMX
> seventeen-odd years ago.)
>
> -GAWollman