FCC tells Indiana FM to stay put

Calvary Chapel’s WCJL-FM is licensed to Morgantown IN, but it wants to move its home city to Paragon IN. The FCC turned down that move before, and now has done so again on appeal.

The FCC noted that the station would be abandoning Morgantown, depriving it of its only radio service. Further, Morgantown is listed with a population of 964 whle Paragon is home to only 663, so less people would be served if the request for the city of license change was granted.

Calvary noted that due to a complicated agreement approved by the FCC to accommodate otherwise mutually exclusive applications, WCJL-FM has never actually served Morgantown fully, since its transmitter had to be located 23 miles away from town. But the FCC said that the station does in fact throw the necessary amount of signal – minimum of 54 dBu -- over 50% of the town.

The FCC’s overriding concern was to avoid wresting lone service from the community of Morgantown – and no compelling benefit was shown by Calvary to topple that concern.