Deep South Delta Foundation will receive a construction permit for a new noncom educational FM in Clarksdale, Miss., despite objections from another applicant in a mutually exclusive application case.
The Federal Communications Commission staff has granted the application of Quitman County Development Organization, which does business as the Deep South Delta Foundation, overriding objections from a competing applicant, the Blues and Gospel Heritage Association, which had hoped to serve Jonestown, Miss.
The Media Bureau earlier had given Quitman/Deep South a decisive preference for the license because it was the only applicant claiming to provide a first NCE aural service to at least 10 percent of people residing within the station’s 60 dBu service contour and to a minimum of 2,000 people.
Blues and Gospel Heritage then objected, raising several arguments, which the Media Bureau has now rejected.
Addressing one of the key arguments, the FCC staff wrote: “BGHA argues that its application should have been preferred over Quitman’s because BGHA’s proposal would provide a first local transmission service to its proposed community of license. We disagree. In the NCE Comparative MO&O, the commission specifically stated that it based NCE fair distribution analysis on new service received, not on first transmission service licensed to a particular community. Thus, BGHA’s assertion that its proposal should have been preferred because it would provide a first transmission service is inapposite.”
Read the case here.
