Little-noted callsign change

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:09:35 -0400, "Dan.Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net> said:

> If CBS owns a station that uses the WBMX-FM calls, why is it necessary
> for them to warehouse the unsuffixed WBMX calls?

Because otherwise, for a brief period of time, they would not have
those calls, with or without the suffix.  (Or else they would run the
risk of someone grabbing WBCN.)

Consider the scenarios:

a) WBCN (104.1) swaps with WBMX (98.5), then WBCN (98.5) becomes
WBZ-FM, then WBCN gets warehoused -- if it's still available.

b) WBMX (98.5) becomes WBZ-FM, then WBCN (104.1) becomes WBMX (104.1)
-- if it's still available -- then WBCN gets warehoused, again if it's
still available.

By putting WBMX on an AM station in Charlotte, they can instead do:

c) WBMX-FM (98.5) becomes WBZ-FM, then WBCN (104.1) swaps with WBMX
(1660) -- no race condition is possible, because there is always a
station under CBS's control with the WBMX callsign.

-GAWollman