Wouldn’t it be great if Morgan County had its own radio station? Imagine a radio station that was actually located here in the county. That station could broadcast programming that really appealed to local listeners. I have thought about this long and often, really ever since I enrolled in the Radio-Television major at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 1973.
On-air classifieds, remote broadcasts from Morgan County locations, farm and agriculture reports, local events, programming created by local people, and music. It’s confounding to even think about having a local station that could play music to appeal to local audiences.
A radio station could keep us updated on breaking news, and alert us to weather or other emergencies.
A radio station would create a few jobs. Radio stations need board operators, news people, and sales people.
You may even recall when back in the early 90s there was a radio station here, with studios in McConnelsville! Then they moved to a house trailer on south State Route 60. And then they moved to the permanent location they had always intended, further down route 60 in Marietta.
Now we have a tower near Pennsville, and nothing else. In fact, that station (WJAW) is operated from the studios of WMOA and it is programmed primarily to compete with stations in the Parkersburg-Marietta market. As a result, it has minimal listenership here in Morgan County, where it is still licensed to operate.
I am passionate about this because I applied for that license. But after spending a considerable sum of money, I lost out to the more experienced “Phase I Broadcasting.” Phase I was owned by John Wharff, Senior and Tom Taggert, and they operated WMOA AM in Marietta.
About two years ago, I was made aware that a second frequency was assigned to Morgan County by the Federal Communications Commission. That assignment was for an FM station to be located near McConnelsville. What a dream come true - another chance to have true local radio!
Again I imagined studios located in Morgan County, broadcasting programming that was targeted for local residents. I imagined radio for Morgan County, about Morgan County, and by Morgan County. I made contact with communications attorneys. I talked with other local investors.
But before we could even start the application process, the opportunity for a local radio station is being snatched away from Morgan County – again. Southeastern Ohio Broadcasting (WHIZ) has already applied for the license and concurrently has applied to move the tower to Philo, Ohio.
They are likely to prevail. It is a weird quirk in broadcast law that gives preference to existing broadcasters, and so discourages new broadcasters from getting into the business.
The chance to have local radio may never come again. The radio frequency spectrum is nearly filled to capacity. There are very few open frequencies, even though we sometimes have difficulty here getting a clear signal because our terrain prohibits us from receiving many “line-of-sight” FM signals. The Morgan County frequency was one of the very few available anywhere in Southeastern Ohio.
I doubt that there is anything to be done now. I have asked a communications attorney to investigate whether a “petition to deny” the WHIZ application could be filed. To date, he has not given me much hope.
In the meantime, I urge you to contact your Washington legislators and voice your opinion on this application. After all, the public does still own the airwaves. And according to FCC, radio is supposed to be a local service – not a remote signal that is beamed into our homes from a neighboring county.
What do YOU think?
Last modified by Rick Shriver on Dec 3 2009 7:06AM
