America's Rural Radio Stations Are Vanishing

[MWmetalhead]

The majority of examples I can think of where small town stations have vanished have nothing to do with mega corporations.

In a given year, across the USA, extremely few rural stations are purchased and then relocated to major metro areas.

[CK-722]

WWBN could have been much better still than the Otisville site. They could have moved much closer to the center of population AND continued to serve the nearly nonexistent COL Tuscola with a 70 dBu signal if that is what the FCC insisted on.

WFBE then prematurely gave up on the Otisville site when a ~5 watt booster inside Buick City and other areas would have solved their problems. They were left with a ~500 foot tower they weren't going to use, and sold it cheap to Regent/Townsquare. The signal was GREAT in outlying areas the weekend WFBE used it with 50 kW. But at 1.8 kW from 149 meters, WWBN is the equivalent of 4 kW from 100 meters. It does a decent job, but once again, it could have been much better.

The Townsquare Corporate Engineer in California didn't share the vision of Faircom on what WWBN could have been, and blew off the people who tried very hard to make it better still. MacDonald's Petition didn't help, as they feared a Country format on WKMF-FM competing with WKCQ, which happened anyway with WFBE. In all fairness, the decisions and petitions by all corporate parties involved were short sighted.

MacDonald Broadcasting even ended up with an easy 6 kW equivalent upgrade of WHZZ, and a MUCH better signal without the cochannel interference from WWBN, as a result of the changes. WWBN 101.5 Tuscola, WPRJ 101.7 Coleman, WHZZ 101.7 Lansing, WMJZ 101.5 Gaylord (to a C2 no less!), and CKNX-FM 101.7 Wingham, ON (could go to nondirectional) ALL ended up being able to significantly upgrade their signals as a result of these changes. Were they all grateful? Of course not. The people at CKNX-FM were the nicest.

[Ben Zonia]

With the intransigence of NIMBY locals and Zoning Boards, there is nothing wrong with building a temporary facility. Or a quick change to a buildable site. But you have to do it and document it and apply and have the CP for it.

[CK-722]

When a small town station is used as a "rim shot" staton into a larger city, it's the same as moving it into that city. Those stations operate as if they're in the larger city and generally don't mention the community of license only in the legal ID. In fact they normally try give the illusion to the listeners that it's actually a station in the larger city. When the do this, it takes 100% of the local voice away from the community that the station is actually licensed too.

Flint has always had fewer FM stations than most cities it's size because of being so close to Detroit and Saginaw. Some how Flint was left out of getting many FM frequencies years ago when FM channel assignments were given out.

Here is four examples that I can think of around Flint:

Flint's Party Station WRCL is licensed to Frankenmuth with a tower site just north of Millington along M-15. (Class A with 3.5kW)

Flint's only locally owned station WOWE has been carrying a Black format since it came on the air in 1988, but it's licensed to Vassar with a tower site just north of Millington just east of M-15. (Class A with 3kW)

Flint's Banana 101.5 Rock Station is WWBN is licensed to Lapeer and has been on air since 1986. In 2001 it was moved from a tower site northeast of Lapeer to a tower site just northwest of Otisville (less than a mile west of M-15) with a major reduction in power because of short spacing. (Class A with 1.8kW)

Flint's Classic Rock 103.5 WRSR is licensed to Owosso. In the mid-90's the tower site was moved to a site about half way between Owosso and Flint. (Class A with 2.85 kW)

These are a few around Flint that comes to mind, but here is a few more in this area.

WMRX in Beaverton has always operated as a local Midland station.

WSAG in Pinconning has always operated as a Saginaw station and started out as a repeater for WSAM-AM. I would guess it has more listeners than WSAM now days.

Some stations try to reach listeners and advertisers in larger cities, but still serve the communties their licensed too. WGDN in Gladwin and WJSZ in Ashley are examples.

Going up north farther, WUPS today tries to sell everywhere it can from Cadillac/Traverse City to the Tri-Cities, but still serves Harrison/Houghton Lake. Back in the 90's WUPS moved their main studios to Mt. Pleasant and acted like a Mt. Pleasant station for several years. That failed and they moved back to Houghton Lake.

Any others that I've missed?

If the FCC had only kept the pre 1962-1964 rules, many stations could have been put in where they are needed, rather than where they fit in order to meet the distance separation requirements, and whether they constitute First Local Service to a nearly nonexistent COL, like Tuscola. Tuscola is neither Tuscola Township, nor Tuscola County. It is a small incorporated area of 10 or so square blocks. Had it been challenged at the appropriate time, it could have been assigned much closer to the center of population. Other stations could have been fit in with ERP/HAAT/DAs designed to protect the other adjacent stations. They could still have fit in stations in the middle of nowhere, if they so desired. Canada had rules that do just that. But then again, there's other Canadian Regulations. I had a conversation with the recently late Millie Felch about just that years ago, and about how CKLW-FM 93.9 was prevented from having the success of The Big 8, CKLW, largely by Canadian Regulations. So I guess there are ups and downs in the Canadian Rules. This conversation was about the time that "The Rise And Fall of The Big 8" came out.