HD subchannels

[Dan.Strassberg]

The FCC frowns on stations applying to change their CoLs to more
populous communities and in cases where the station that is attempting
to move is the only audio broadcast service licensed to its CoL, the
FCC generally rejects the applications out of hand. In the case of
105.7, it is fortunate for WXKS (AM) that Greater Media never tried to
change 105.7's CoL. After a 105.7 CoL change (to, say, Boston) had
been accomplished, had AM 1200 applied to move, the little Framingham
State College station (a non-comm Class D, I believe) would have been
the only audio-broadcast station that remained licensed to Framingham.
The FCC would not have liked that situation and AM 1200 might have
been forced to remain in Framingham, essentially making it impossible
for the station to become a "Boston" signal. Note that 1200 changed
its CoL to Newton and not to Boston, even though I'm pretty sure that
it meets the signal requirements for being licensed to Boston.
Although there are two other audio broadcast stations licensed to
Newton (WZBC and WNTN), 1200 is the only commercial Newton-licensed
station that operates full time. That plus 105.7's being licensed to
Framingham gave 1200 all of the brownie points it needed with the FCC
to move to Newton.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Hall" <aerie.ma@comcast.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 8:46 AM
Subject: RE: HD subchannels

> Which makes me think of another question: why do stations that were
> originally licensed to a suburb, but which have moved to the same
> antenna locations as stations licensed to Boston itself, still
> identify themselves with the suburban town in which they were
> originally licensed?