WBIX ownership/format flip to take place much sooner than originally announced

[Dan.Strassberg]

The FCC daily e-mail digest for (I think) last Thursday, August 26
announced that the application for transfer of the WBIX license to
Holy Family had been granted. Nevertheless, I continued to believe
that the actual closing of the sale would take place on November 1 as
originally announced and that neither the new WQOM calls nor the new
EWTN programming would be heard until then. I figured H-F needed the
extra time to scrape together the $1 million that is due to Alex
Langer at closing. Also there is an issue with an application to
modify WBIX's CP to increase its D power to 50 kW and give up its
dual-site operation. The original CP, which was granted several months
ago, used all five towers at the Ashland site. With the modified CP,
WBIX would use, by day, only three of the five towers at the site. So
far, I have seen no indication that the modification of CP has been
granted.

There had been speculation that many of the brokered-time programs on
WBIX would stay put under the new ownership. That seems not to be the
case, however. Apparently, the existing shows have to be gone by
Monday September 13. So far, I have heard only one program announce
where it will be heard. Tom O'Brien, the technical market analyst--the
guy who sounds as if he has completely taken leave of his senses and
without a doubt has completely taken leave of the English
language--will move his (two hours, I think) of totally unintelligible
gibberish to WBNW et al on 9/13 at 4:00PM.

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