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Start Free Trial NowTitle: TV project needs new backers –FCC
Description: C-10; WPXD
TV project needs new backers —FCC By Pamela Klein BUSINESS LABOR REPORTER The Federal Communications Commis sion may have dealt the final blow to an Ann Arbor company’s 4-year-old hopes of building a commercial television station in Washtenaw County. Gordon Oppenheimer, supervising attor ney for the FCC’s TV applications bureau, has told The News that backers of the sta tion have until early April to transfer the station’s construction permit to another business. "Failure to comply will result in the loss of permit authorization,” he said. THAT MEANS THE current holders of the construction permit, Wolverine- Morningstar Broadcasting Co., cannot build station WRHT in Washtenaw County, Oppenheimer said from his Washington, D C. office. ‘‘We decided the best way to get the station on the air was to have some one else build it,” he said. The FCC’s action, spelled out in a Feb. 9 letter to Gershom C. Morningstar, the prime backer of the local station, is the re sult of “much frustration” with the four- year process of trying to get Channel 31 on the air, Oppenheimer said. Morningstar said he, too, is frustrated with trying to establish the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) television channel. But he disputed claims that his company could no longer build the station for which it still has a permit. The FCC letter gives the local braodcast- ing company 60 days from Feb. 9 to file an application to transfer the construction permit, according to Oppenheimer. MORNINGSTAR, A professional writer and former broadcasting professor, con firmed that he had received the Feb. 9 let ter. However, he said its contents are ‘‘not as cut and dried as the FCC would like to think.” He said his attorneys are trying to clarify what the agency has outlined. The outcome of this latest disagreement may spell the end for Morningstar’s 14- year dream of a local TV station. The area has not had its own station since Channel 20 (WPAG) on the UHF band was on the air from 1954 to 1958_ Channel 31 was allocated to the Ann Ar bor area in 1973 after a petition by Morning- star’s company. Authorization to operate the station was given to the same comapny in 1975. Since then, Wolverine-Morningstar Broadcasting Co. has applied for - and re ceived — two extensions to that permit from the FCC because of problems with financing or organization, according to Op penheimer. Morningstar said the bureaucratic web necessitated the extentions. He claimed that when his company had financing avail able to build the station, the work was held yp by inaction from the FCC. WHAT IT BOILS down to is that no work has begun on Channel 31 and the FCC says it’s tired of the delays. Oppenheimer explained that the agency’s latest stipulation — to transfer the permit to another company — was made "because that’s what the permit holders asked for. The reason they wanted more time was because they had a buyer who was ready to put the station up quick ly.” But Morningstar said he had requested another full extension to the construction permit, which is normally valid for six months. According to a verbal agreement with the FCC, he said, the company was to have the first 60 days of the extension "to explore other possibilities,” such as transf er of the permit, but a full six-month exten sion would be granted. The company’s application for its third extension had been on file with the FCC since September, Morningstar said. The Feb. 9 letter is the first action on that appli cation. Morningstar added that he was reluctant to discuss the station’s status "because we just don’t know how the paragraph ends. We’re still in the middle of a sentence now. See TV station, Page C-14
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Clipped 1 month ago
- Ann Arbor News
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Feb, 25 1979 - Page 38