[WXBH-Discuss] Good news! We've agreed with Fern Creek to time-share!

[John Hicks]

We met with the Fern Creek High School radio people on Tuesday and we 
all agreed in principle that we should proceed to enter into a 
time-sharing agreement!

This means we'll both be able to go on the air soon with full 8-year
renewable (i.e. permanent) licenses, dividing the weekly broadcast
schedule between us. (The alternative was for the two of us to alternate
four-year stints. And we now know that if that were to happen, Fern 
Creek would get the first four years since they applied for their 
license first.)

Our next step is to agree on a specific schedule for sharing time and
submit it to the FCC for approval. We meet again on Thursday, September 
7, to go to work on that.

The FCC also allows a time-sharing agreement to include an agreement to
share transmitting facilities (antenna, transmitter, etc.). We discussed
that possibility with Fern Creek. (We even discussed the possibility of 
sharing studios.) Fern Creek was at first agreeable to this but later 
expressed some reservations. So we are tentatively planning to broadcast 
from our own facilities (either in Middletown or, hopefully, moving to 
Fern Creek), but we may readdress this.

We discussed possible schedules at some length but postponed any
agreement until our next meeting (next week). I want to be getting your 
input on that.

Although the licensee is the FCHS Alumni Association, they plan to make 
it a student station, integrating it into the school's communications 
program. Two communications teachers who'll be working with the station
attended the meeting.

The teachers indicated that they were planning on starting
out by broadcasting from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each school day. 
Eventually, however, they may want to broadcast football and/or 
basketball games.

The people from Fern Creek were under the impression that the schedule 
we work out will be relatively permanent. (I believe they are mistaken 
and am trying to get verification of that to them.) But based on that 
assumption, they asked for the weekday hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., 
giving us the late night, weekends, and summer vacation.

I hope to go back to them with something in hand to assure them that it 
is possible to amend the schedule as their needs change. I'll also be 
proposing an alternative schedule.

I want to get your input on what schedule to take back to them.

Let me start by proposing that we give them their core 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. 
weekdays. That's modest enough and we needn't quibble on that.

I'm thinking we can perhaps arrive at a temporary schedule that doesn't 
include evening ball games for now with the understanding that we will 
renegotiate when they are ready to do the games.

What are yourall's observations on the time periods that would be good 
for us and would also be fair to Fern Creek?

What are the deadest hours? I would think from midnight to 6:00 a.m. 
(But is the midnight hour more valuable than the 5:00 hour? etc.)

What's the tradeoff between weekday and weekend hours?

What do you think constitutes morning and afternoon drive times? Will 
get get some decent drive time by taking the hours before 7 a.m.?

Since they get prime morning drive time, I would think it would be 
reasonable to ask for afternoon drive time. Do you agree?

Another way to look at it is this:

The hours from midnight to 6:00 a.m. are dead, so we split the remaining 
18 hours in two, nine hours each. Their hours from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. 
would be 8 hours, so they would get one more hour of their choosing.

Maybe the simplest and fairest for now would be an arbitrary 12 hour 
split, something like 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. or 4 a.m. to 4 p.m. That way, we 
split the dead time in the wee hours.

We could start out by doing that seven days a week. Then if they later 
need evening hours for ball games, we could ask for more weekend time.

Assuming we move to Fern Creek, we can be more flexible, offering to 
broadcast their games on our time for example. A lot of that will be 
based on building a good working relationship with them. (Right now they 
are a little wary of associating high school stuff with our [unknown and 
possible wacko] programming.)

Any observations and analysis will be appreciated.

Thanks,

John