New AM 50 KW Signals

On another thread, Night Hawk commented, "Just curious, are all the AM 50kw frequencies filled? And, can there be anymore 50kw AMs be allowed anywhere in the USA?"

There are clever/devious/legal ways to insert a new 50KW signal where one didn't exist earlier . . .

Dateline Fort Wayne, Indiana - home of the former clear channel beast WOWO Radio: In 1999, the WOWO 50KW night-time signal was cut by 80% due to WOWO's purchase by Inner City Broadcasting, owned by NY notables such as Jesse Jackson, former mayor David Dinkins, and Al Sharpton - because they already owned WLIB in NYC at AM 1190 and had limited output power at night due to WOWO's "clear channel" status. Thanks to a new federal minority broadcast support law, Inner City bought WOWO specifically to reduce its night-time power and increase power at WLIB (LIB=Black Liberation).

Since the 1920s, WOWO was heard clearly at night along the eastern seaboard from Massachusetts down to Florida due to its directional night-time array. Now, when Fort Wayne residents head toward the Ohio border at night (only 20 miles), they can hear WLIB in the background while listening to WOWO. By the time, travelers get to Lima, Ohio, WOWO is unlistenable. Inner City had no interest in owning WOWO for the long term and immediately sold the de-fanged WOWO to the current owner, my previous employer, Federated Media, who was "powerless" to re-generate the previous 50KW night-time signal. While growing up in southern Ohio in the 60s & 70s, WOWO would boom-through on the AM radio at night; now, AM 1190 is static or the occasional reception of WLIB.

There's a classic example of how to create a new 50KW signal: Buy a 50KW station, strip its signal, and boost another station to 50KW.

There is definitely a slot in east Tennessee after 50kW WLIB/Chattanooga went dark in early 2017. But it's not like there's a booming demand for new AM stations, at any power level.

FYI, 1190 WLIB is not 50kW. It is 10kW-D and 30kW-N, DA-2.

These days, you can boost the power to 50,000 watts on even regional stations, not just the ones on the Clear-Channel frequencies. Note that 580 KMJ Fresno, 950 KJR Seattle and 950 WWJ Detroit all run 50,000 watts around the clock.

I was going to include 980 KFWB Los Angeles to the list, but a quick check of Radio-Locator.com and Wikipedia shows that station cut back to only 5000 watts fulltime. I guess they sold off some of the real estate containing a complicated tower array?

And one more note for ThatVoice22... I don't think Inner City Broadcasting needed a special minority ownership law to reduce power on WOWO Fort Wayne so WLIB could stay on the air at night in NYC. 1510 KGA, a Sports station in Spokane, did the same thing a few years ago. It reduced its nighttime signal from 50,000 watts to 15,000 watts so KSFN Piedmont CA could have a better nighttime signal over the San Francisco Bay Area. Even longer ago, Westinghouse bought a 1010 station in Little Rock and took it off the air so it wouldn't interfere with WINS's nighttime signal in NYC.