KQV on auction today
December 27, 2017Today (December 27) is the day that heritage station KQV (1410) goes on the auction block. The license and equipment will be grouped in one and the land in Ross Township where the 5 Blaw Knox towers have stood for 70 years will be sold separately. PBRTV has heard sketchy details but a new licensee, should one come forth, will have a limited time to use the current tower site. After that, the station will have to seek a new transmitter site and will more than likely be at a much lower power due to frequency spacing issues. CMS Station Brokerage is handling the sale.
Perhaps the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard, and one complety consistent with how KQV has been run. Take possibly the oldest station in the country, with limited power and a license that requires it to go directional at night, and attempt to sell just the signal and transmitting equipment. IF the FCC ever Ok’d a move it would be with such limited power as to completely nullify the station and its legacy. How sad.
Not ridiculous when you consider the land has value…
It does but I think the neighbors will push back on development and the land needs to be completely developed–sewage lines, etc.
And, while that might be the way to make a quick buck it certainly does nothing for the station, its frequency, or its legacy.
I’ve been saying that all along. St. Sebastian Church tried to sell some extra property (which is nearly adjacent to KQV) and got a lot of pushback from the neighbors.
HOW SAD. OLDEST RADIO STATION IN THE WORLD, AND IT\’S GOING DARK!!! HOW ABOUT THIS…, GO BACK TO THE ERA WHEN KQV WAS AT IT PEAK! YES, IT MY SEEM OLD, BUT REAL OLDIES JUST MIGHT DO THE TRICK. IF WDOE(1410) IN DUNKIRK N.Y. CAN DO IT, AND WWOW(1360) IN CONNEAUT, OH CAN DO IT, AND CLOSER TO HOME, WJPA(1450/95.3) CAN DO IT, WHY CAN\’T A MAJOR MARKET LIKE PITTSBURGH SUPPORT A TRUE OLDIES STATION??!!
A developer with deep pockets to pay lawyers and sufficient patience will always prevail over “pushback” from neighbors. I’ve seen it time and time again. Borough councils eventually succumb to the lure of more property tax revenue.
As you may or may not have taken from my response previously, the neighbors in the prior dispute raised enough of a raucous that nothing ever happened.
Remember when WHJB sold their tower site near Greengate Mall for retail development and then changed their city of license to Irwin? This might be a similar situation. The land might be worth more than KQV. Is there any possibility of moving to another frequency? Sad, but I think we can be sure that the “money forces” will ultimately prevail.
Another frequency might be an idea, but I can’t see any that would support 5 kilowatts in the city on a single tower.
People here have talked about 1340 being open for others, I assume at 1 kw, and someone at the old WZUM wanted to move to 890.. 1110 was abandoned, and 1130 and 940, just thowing numbers out there..
There’s the upper band above 1600, that’s 10 kw, but ground conductivity is poor around here and wouldn’t help it much, if a move like that could be made, remembering that the extended band was for stations with high levels of interference originally.
It’s good that the land is being sold separately I think, because if it was all one piece, a land developer wouldn’t be concerned about a broadcast facility, they deal in a whole different realm, taking dirt and making it into money.
I wish Pittsburgh had a well funded museum of broadcasting that could take the license, use the low power and play old time radio and promote the museum, with the station in trust as an historic asset instead of just a commercial one.
There are times when I wish America could have a little less crass commercialism and more emphasis on art and history, and this is on of those times. KQV’s leaving seems tragic.
Boomer