Robservations on the media beat:
Back in November 2015 I first urged City Colleges of Chicago to put up for bid the over-the-air license of its little-watched noncommercial television station WYCC-Channel 20. Mayor Rahm Emanuel initially nixed the proposal before the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune and others pointed out that it wasn’t such a bad idea. Last week WYCC fetched $15.9 million in the FCC spectrum auction. Among five other Chicago area stations in the auction were Fox-owned WPWR-Channel 50 ($160.7 million) and Telemundo Chicago WSNS-Channel 44 ($141.6 million). The nation’s top bid was $304.2 million for Trinity Broadcasting Network’s WWTO-Channel 35 licensed to LaSalle, Illinois. Most are expected to continue operating on other stations' frequencies or digital subchannels. Over the next 39 months, some TV stations will transition to new channel assignments. (For more on the impact in Chicago, see TDogMedia’s report here.) Continue reading