WYLE-TV Florence, AL will remain but a memory. The FCC has rejected an appeal by former owner ETC Communications to reinstate the station’s license.
WYLE, a former Jewelry TV shopping channel affiliate went off the air on February 8, 2007 due to financial difficulties. On February 3, 2008 the station went back on the air and broadcast a test pattern for 24 hours, then went off the air again, with ETC notifying the FCC on February 8th of that brief renewal of broadcasting and requesting permission to remain dark for the next year.
As previously reported, the FCC ruled that broadcasting a text pattern was not sufficient to qualify as “broadcast signals” under the Commission’s rules. That meant that the station had been off the air for more than 12 months straight and the FCC cancelled the license, scuttling efforts to sell the station to the owner of in-market WHDF-TV (CW) Huntsville, AL under a failed station waiver.
ETC appealed that decision. In the latest development, Barbara Kreisman, Chief, Video Division in the FCC’s Media Bureau rejected the appeal, finding that the former licensee had failed to provide any new facts or arguments to warrant reinstatement of the license.
