Local News: WKAG-TV Rebuts Charter Claims After Drop
Low-Power station says signal strength is adequate
By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/6/2009 7:00:58 PM
A low-power TV station in Tennessee claims its signal strength has improved since installing a new transmitter and that Charter Communications shouldn't have dropped it from the channel lineup in Clarksville, Tenn., for that reason.
Charter dropped WKAG-TV (Channel 3) of Hopkinsville, Ky., in Clarksville, Tenn., last month. According to the station and a story in a local paper, The Leaf-Chronicle, Charter had been paying the cost of getting the station feed via a fiber-optic line for more than a decade, but dropped that arrangement and then dropped the station, which had been carried under must-carry rules.
"The signal strength tests Charter conducted were consistent with FCC rules and proper engineering practices and WKAG's signal failed to meet the minimum signal standards for carriage on our Clarksville channel line-up," Charter spokeswoman Anita Lamont said Friday, after WKAG challenged that claim.
WKAG put out a detailed statement on its Web site about signal-strength testing requirements under Federal Communications Commission rules for Class A low-power TV stations and said its new solid-state transmitter greatly improved its broadcast.
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