Midwest Communications is looking to build a new FM on the shores of Lake Michigan south of Green Bay – but a local town has balked at being the site of the station’s tower.
According to radio veteran Mark Heller, the town of Newton WI had been promised that locating the station within its boundaries would be a source of local employment – but Duke Wright’s company was forced to lower the scale of that promise to hiring somebody to deliver concrete to the site.
In the end, the town decided by unanimous vote that damaging views of the lake without any obvious ongoing benefit was not a good deal. It also decided that the proposed site was too close to residential areas.
According to Heller, the town decided that the tower was “…not an ‘inherently beneficial use’ to the Town of Newton.”
Midwest bought the CP from Tri-County Radio Inc. for $200K, and is trying to site it in the general area between Green Bay to the north and Sheboygan to the south.
If built as planned, it would be a Class A signal on 98.9 MHz, with 6 kW @ 224’. It will have overlap with only two of Midwest’s stations, WIXX-FM Green Bay and WHBL-AM Sheboygan. But the plans are now up in the air. Heller says the CP still has 18 months or so before expiration.
