SETH ROLBEIN

So You Want To Own A Tv Station

 

The sale had become inevitable when Moore began making his move into television. Actually, it's more accurate to say he was pushed.In the early 1980s, the FCC had begun to issue what are known as low-power broadcast television licenses around the country. And Moore was beginning to get phone inquiries from people interested in leasing space on his radio transmitter tower to broadcast TV signals across the Cape. Moore figured that if somebody was going to get into television in one of the fastest-growing areas of the fastest-growing regions of the country, it might as well be him.

His reasoning was sound. Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket are a bit betwixt and between, on the fringes of both the Boston and Providence markets but really part of neither. The Cape is blessed with a distinctive identity and a distinctive base of advertisers. And an influx of thousands of wealthy retirees with plenty of time and money was fueling a year-round economy that ran right beside the booming resort economy -- the two passing the baton back and forth with barely a break in stride.

In small-market television, Moore saw potential for growth much like he had seen in radio 20 years before. So he decided to preempt the competition, and, in January 1984, after more than a year of preparation, put, a fledgling low-power television station on the air. The signal was weak -- 14,000 watts -- but the investment by television standards was modest -- around $500,000. Channel 58 was on a shakedown cruise.

The cruise ended prematurely. In August 1982, the FCC authorized a full-power television station in, of all places, Martha's Vineyard, population 8,900 year-round. At first blush, the idea seemed ridiculous, requiring a multimillion-dollar investment in a market in which four-digit line items are considered hefty. Moore wouldn't have paid too much attention to it but for one thing: the designated station, should anyone ever apply to take the license, would broadcast as Channel 58, preempting Moore's own low-power signal. His future in television was in jeopardy.

Moore fretted, hoping no one would force his hand. As it happened, someone did. Wallace E. Carroll, the chairman of the board of Katy Industries Inc., a conglomerate based in Illinois, owned a summer house on Martha's Vineyard, and he and his son fell in love with the idea of owning a station on a prestigious little vacation island off the Massachusetts coast. Early in 1983, he filed his application with the FCC. Moore was left no choice but to file a competing bid.

The negotiations began almost immediately. There was talk of a partnership, threats of FCC battles, but in the end Moore did what had to be done. One Saturday in the spring of 1984, he and his lawyer flew out to Katy headquarters outside of Chicago, faced a battery of lawyers and executives from the other side, and sat through a business lunch that Moore expected to be a fancy buffet but turned out to be takeout from McDonald's. By the end of the afternoon, Moore left Chicago, having bought out Katy's interest for $287,500. The FCC granted him the license in November 1984.

At first glance, it might look as if Don Moore was positioned into a business venture that, not long before, he had thought crazy for anyone to try. But Moore was not just anyone. He already had a tower on Cape Cod tall enough to serve the islands, and thus satisfy the FCC that this was a "Martha's Vineyard station." He had experience operating a television station. He had extensive contacts and goodwill with advertisers from his radio station. He had the money: selling his radio station was a condition set by the FCC for granting the full-power TV license. And he had a track record local banks appreciated. If anyone could make a go of it, surely it was Don Moore.

But most crucial of all, he had "must carry" working for him, giving him access to Cape Cod houses that even his full-power signal could not reach. "Everything I did was predicated on it," Moore says.

In hindsight, Moore admits he should have realized that the winds of change were blowing against him. Although the "must-carry" rule was "last on everyone's list" for deregulation, according to William Johnson, acting deputy chief of the FCC's Mass Media Bureau, it is now a safe bet that any regulation is in jeopardy in Reagan's Washington. Certainly Ted Turner's participation in the "must-carry" court challenge was another bad omen.

"But we figured, who cares?" Moore recalls thinking. "They'll never take away 'must carry.' Too many important stations are involved. We thought we were safe."

In fact, most of the nation's most powerful TV stations were unaffected. Unlike Moore, they are network affiliates, carrying the popular network programs that cable companies still need. Some day, independent producers may make the networks, and their affiliates, obsolete. But not yet. So for the moment, that leaves small, independent broadcasters like Moore with tne most to lose.

Both sides are trying to work things out in negotiations, and they have come up with the outline of a new "must-carry" regulation they think could pass constitutional muster. Though the cable operators are sitting with the winning hand one ace in the hole: their is the programming most people still prefer, and without "must carry," they may be allowed to charge cable operators a hefty premium for the right to air all that copyrighted material.

Whatever the outcome of the negotiations in Washington, however, it is clear that, long term, history is not moving in Moore's direction.After a slower-than-expected start, cable is fast becoming the arbiter of what most people will get to watch on their television sets. And the sparring between the two media now looks more and more like a fight to the death for over-the-air broadcasting. Don Moore, who has spent 20 years in the communications business staying a step ahead of the industry, now finds that his last great leap forward may have left him something of an anachronism. Ironically, his best hope in this era of almost mindless deregulation may be a burst of regulation -- from many of the same people in Washington who helped to get him in this pickle in the first place.

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