FCC Says No to Appeal for a New AM in L.A..
Schwab Multimedia has been trying to build at 1500 kHz in Culver City.
Schwab Multimedia has lost an appeal to the Federal Communications Commission in a case involving a planned AM station near Los Angeles for which it had a construction permit.
This is a “tolling” case, one that involves the FCC construction clock. The history is complex — the FCC’s summary is 2,500 words long, not counting many extended footnotes — but the upshot is that KWIF in Culver City was never built and, barring further developments, apparently will not be. Its call sign has now been deleted.
Levine/Schwab Partnership, which does business as Schwab Multimedia, had applied in 2004 to build a new AM station in the Los Angeles area. It eventually secured a CP in 2016 for the station at 1500 kHz.
That CP was challenged by the owner of another station, KSPA in Ontario, Calif., which is on a first-adjacent channel in the same market. KSPA since was sold, but the new owner has continued to fight KWIF.
Construction of KWIF didn’t get off the ground. Schwab submitted multiple “tolling” requests, asking for more time to build. Its reasons included the pandemic — it said a shelter-in-place order in California made it impossible for vendors to start work — as well as KSPA objections and, later, smoke from California wildfires.
More to the story here
Paul McLane, Radio World (2022-01-07)