THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609140511
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 92 lines
It could take years before its ownership is decided. Nonetheless, a long line is forming for what could be a richly rewarding prize: a new full-power commercial television station in Hampton Roads.
Last March, in a decision that was overlooked by all but broadcast-industry insiders, the Federal Communications Commission authorized the new station, on Channel 21 in Virginia Beach.
Now, a dozen or more applicants are expected to file for the UHF license. At least eight already have over the past month.
Meanwhile, some managers of Hampton Roads' half-dozen other existing commercial TV stations are wondering out loud if there's really a need for a new player on the scene.
``You've got to wonder if there's a market,'' said Christopher Pike, general manager of WGNT-TV, the local United Paramount affiliate.
The applicants to date for Channel 21 range from the largest of the large in the industry to the downright little.
Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group is among those in the hunt. It's the nation's largest station chain, with holdings that include local Fox Broadcasting affiliate WTVZ-TV. Sinclair has applied even though FCC rules now prohibit one company from owning two full-power stations in the same market.
There are obscure applicants like the Krawolec Children's Family Trust of Porterville, Calif.
And in between are entrepreneurs like Paul Lucci, who once owned the local radio station formerly known as The Coast, and Steven Soldinger of Charlotte, whose now-deceased father, Harold, was a pioneer in Hampton Roads TV broadcasting.
All are hoping for the whole prize.
``But it's more likely that there will be a settlement among all the applicant parties, and everybody will take a piece of it,'' said Lucci, who partnered with two Washington businessmen to apply for the license.
Or all may come up empty-handed.
David Hanna, general manager of WPEN-TV, a string of three low-power Hampton Roads TV stations, said he thinks the FCC may decide to auction all pending licenses for new TV and radio properties to the highest bidders. Billions of dollars worth of frequency licenses have already been auctioned by the agency in the past few years for everything from satellite TV to wireless phones.
In any case, nobody involved in applying for Channel 21 expects the license-ownership question to be resolved anytime soon.
That's because the FCC's decades-long practice of awarding radio and TV licenses based on so-called ``comparative analysis'' was thrown out by a Washington federal appeals court in December 1993. The federal agency has been trying ever since to figure out how to replace that method, which considered factors ranging from the applicant's financial strength and community-service record to its percentage of minority ownership.
So while one arm of the agency keeps allocating new stations like Channel 21 and taking applications for them, another arm can't decide how to actually award the licenses.
Frustrated by waits of up to 10 years on their applications for new FM stations, two radio broadcasters last month asked the same federal appeals court in Washington to force the FCC to finally set license decision-making criteria.
For applicants like Lucci, Channel 21 is worth the wait. Lucci said he was one of the original owners of WTVZ and prospered handsomely from that investment. He and partners have also landed increasingly valuable licenses for wireless cable TV in Las Vegas and Fort Myers, Fla.
Soldinger, who has built a small fortune in various TV and radio ventures in the Carolinas, said owning Channel 21 would reward him not just financially, but emotionally.
``It's important to me to be able to return to the area that I consider home,'' he said.
Sinclair Broadcast Group's intentions are less clear. Through clever deal-making, it already controls two stations in a number of markets in which it operates. But Hampton Roads is the first market in which Sinclair appears to be directly challenging FCC rules against so-called ``duopoly'' ownership.
Sinclair's president, David Smith, didn't respond to an interview request.
Other Channel 21 applicants, none of whom could be reached for comment, are Robert O. Copeland, a private investor in Virginia Beach; a group led by a William Smith of Cary, N.C.; Flinn Broadcasting Corp. of Memphis, Tenn.; and Kralowec Children's Family Trust of Porterville, Calif.
Another applicant, WinStar Communications Inc. of New York., referred questions to the company's president, William J. Rouhana. He didn't respond to an interview request.
WPEN's Hanna said his station's parent, Lockwood Broadcasting of Hampton, will also apply for the license.
Indeed, Hanna initiated the process that led to the FCC's allotment of the channel. He submitted an engineering study that proved the new station wouldn't interfere with others in the mid-Atlantic.
``I want a full-power television station,'' Hanna said, ``and we're going to take our chance at getting it. . . . We're guaranteed nothing. It's an ambiguous procedure. But it's worth the wait.''
And is there room for another station? ``There's always room for another guy,'' Hanna said. by CNB