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10—Topeka State Journal, Thursday, May 22, 1980 Competing application displayed ByLINDALAIRD TV Time Editor A second application for Topeka UHF (ultra high frequency) Channel 49 went on public display at a Topeka law firm today. Filed May 14, 1980, with the Federal Communications Commission in Wash ington", D.C., the latest application of Mid America Broadcasting of Topeka Inc. is ready for public purusal at the offices of Shaw, Hergenreter, Quarns- trom and Wright, 700 Kansas Ave. Mid-America Broadcasting of Tope-. ka Inc. consists of five Kansas inves tors — Larry Hudson and Terri Tharp, both of Chanute; Cale Hudson of Thay er; and Dean Coe and Larry Thompson, both of Parsons. All have cable TV holdings in Southeast Kansas. Thompson is general manager with Dean Coe, station manager. Both are officers and owners of a media service called Words and Pitcures Corp. at Parsons. Both have had backgrounds in programming production for the handicapped. Each is formerly with the Bureau of Child Research at Par- SMU Larry ThompMn Thompson was director of the media center at Parsons State Hospital when he quit to go into the firm, Words and Pictures Corp., in 1978. Both Thompson, a Chanute native, and Coe, a Boston 1 area native, accom panied the application to Topeka today. The other three in Mid America Broadcasting are Kansans with inter ests in Cable television firms, oil, real estate, insurance and farming. Larry Hudson has CATV holdings in Cape Gi rardeau and Jackson, both in Missouri; Newton, Augusta, El Dorado and other cities in Kansas. Cale Hudson, brother of Larry Hudson, is president of First State Bank of Thayer and a former Kansas senator from the 14th district. The application seeks affiliation with the ABC-TV Network and offers what it considers full community commit ment. ' With a 1,077-foot tower to be con structed approximately 6.5 miles due northwest of the center of Topeka (1.8 air miles due north of KTSB-TV’s cur rent tower), the station plans studio facilities somewhere within Topeka city limits. Though investors have an option on the land for the tower the FAA has not given its approval to the site. The application filed by Washington, D.C., attorney John A. Borsari lists the proposed construction and first quarter operating costs as $2,452,979. Thompson pledged 133 hours’ pro gramming per week from sign-on to sign-off with nine hours of news with at least 30 to 50 percent of that locally and regionally oriented. At least seven hours of public affairs programming is planned with two other hours set for religious and/or a combination of pub lic affairs programs from network or local. “When you consider Topeka with its mental health facilities and its special ized agencies, we feel we must be sen sitive to these needs,” he said. “We are intent in providing pro gramming relating to people — per haps special people as well,” com mented Coe, who agrees with Thomp son in their philosphy for better public affairs commitment to the community. Since both have had experience • in both the non-profit and private sectors of media work, they believe they can be more sensitive to Topeka service agen cies and issues within the Topeka view ing area. A staff of 32 full- and part- time peo ple was listed in the application. Ten full-time people were estimated in pro gramming (which includes news and on-air personnel); five full-time and three part-time were planned for sales; seven full-time and two part-time tech nical personnel were expected; and four full-time and one part-time were planned in management of the station which will operate at 5,000 kilowats of power. ■Kansans sent letters- Dole will be in running (Continued from Page 1) • “Thanks for your continued support and encourage- .rnent.” - Dole, who will be 57 on July 22, has served two terms in the Senate, being first elected in 1968 to succeed Frank .Carlson of Concordia. He served as national Republican chairman in the early 1970s and was the GOP vice presi dential running mate of former President Gerald R. Ford in 1976. He will address the state GOP convention at Topeka’s Municipal Auditorium about 10 a.m. Saturday, then will hold a news conference at the auditorium immediately after his speech. Dole will tell the convention he is running for re-elec tion, then answer newsmen’s questions. He also is ex pected to be elected an at-large delegate supporting Ron ald Reagan for the GOP presidential nomination during the convention. Dole contended for the Republican presidential nomi nation this year, but dropped out in mid-March after faring poorly in the Iowa caucuses in late January and the New Hampshire primary in late February. He de clared his support for Reagan on the eve of Kansas’ presidential primary election April 1. Reagan won 20 of Kansas' 32 GOP delegates in the primary, and is expected to gain the votes of several more who will be elected from an at-large category at Saturday’s convention. George Bush won four of the delegates and Rep. John Anderson five, but the convention is expected to strip Anderson, who has withdrawn from the GOP race, of his delegates and elect those five from floor nominations, meaning Reagan backers will decide who they are. Dole has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the media over his intentions. He declined to deny a pub lished report in a suburban Kansas City weekly newspa per that he would not seek re-election this year, and would instead get out of candidate politics and join a New York law firm. All during the speculation that he might leave the Senate, however, the senator’s senatorial re-election campaign organization kept building its momentum, hir ing staff, renting office space and printing campaign literature and bumper stickers. • Dole will return to Kansas Friday to conduct, along with Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., a hearing in Great Bend which will give oil royalty owners a chance to voice their complaints over the windfall profits tax. Dole then goes to Pittsburg Friday evening to partici pate in that city’s 104th anniversary observance, return ing to Topeka to spend Friday night. After speaking to the state GOP convention and hold ing his news conference, Dole will go to western Kansas for tentatively arranged appearances Saturday after noon, then to his hometown of Russell Saturday night. He speaks at Resthaven Cemetery in Wichita Monday, then attends a barbeque in Millberger later that day. He also is scheduled to address the Kansas City, Kan., Rota ry Club Tuesday noon. Topeka has two commercial and one , public television station. Two other channel allocations remain vacant, but not because applications have not sought those frequencies from the Fed eral Communications Commission. An application for Topeka’s UHF (ul tra high frequency) channel 43 has been tied up in FCC litigation for more than five years. Last October, Cap com, a limited partnership company made up of more than 20 Kansas investors, filed with the FCC for a construction permit for chan nel 49. Finally, the FCC set a cutoff date of May 16, 1980. That firm had hoped to gain its construction permit by late summer and be on the air within 18 months (the least amount of time it would take to build). This second filing means the FCC must call a comparative hearing to de termine which of the two applicants should receive the construction permit. This determination could take up to two years or more unless there is some kind of outside settlement. According to an FCC spokesman, it would have been most unusual had the second application not been filed with the broadcast industry’s intense growth. Many times more than two ap plicants compete for each new frequen cy allocation. Sometimes there are as many as eight or 10. Thompson said they believe their ap plication would be to the benefit of Topeka. Mid America Broadcasting de cided to file for channel 49 about six months ago with active ascertainment beginning about two months ago. The firm also has an FCC application pending for UHF channel 42 at Omaha, Neb. It has been pending since Novem ber 1979, with five other applicants compettting.
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- Topeka State Journal
- Topeka, Kansas
- May, 22 1980 - Page 9