[BC] Dead air or no air...

[Scott Fybush]

Rich Wood wrote:

> At 9.8Kw, WOWO still seems to cover their 
> market nicely. They then found a buyer who was satisfied with the 
> station's reduced power. For a "crippled" station they're doing quite 
> well. They're #1 12+ with and 11.9. The next closest is WQHK-FM with an 
> 8.0. This is the Fall 2008 book. The Winter book should be out soon. 
> I'll bet they'll still dominate the market. The sky was supposed to 
> fall. It didn't.

True - but the WOWO case isn't over yet. While the WLIB affair resulted 
in WOWO reducing power from 50 kW to 9.8 kW at night and being 
downgraded from a class A signal to a class B signal, in practice WOWO 
is still being protected as though it were still a class A.

What happened, as I understand it, is that a number of other 1190s all 
jumped on the opportunity to improve their night signals after WOWO was 
downgraded, and the whole mess ended up in court and has yet to be 
resolved. As a result, the only additional signal on 1190 at night in 
the 13+ years since WOWO was "downgraded" is WLIB, and it has a deep 
null in WOWO's direction, throwing essentially zero signal toward Fort 
Wayne.

So in reality, WOWO's NIF is still that of a class A station, and the 
slight decline in coverage from 50 kW to 9.8 kW is fairly insignificant 
against that low, low NIF. When and if the other 1190s (Kansas City, St. 
Louis, Atlanta, whatever comes out of the Annapolis/Leesburg shuffle) 
power up at night, that's when WOWO will actually find out what it means 
to be a class B instead of a class A.

There are a few other factors at play: WOWO's transmitter site is way 
out to the southwest of Fort Wayne, and most of the (now stalled) growth 
and development in town has been on the north side. WOWO's already a 
little shaky at night out on the northeastern fringes, and when the 
noise floor starts going up, it will be gone.

(But by then, they'll probably be simulcasting it on an FM, anyway.)

s