7 Previously-Granted Upper Midwest FM Stations Up for Auction Again

Seven future FM stations in the Upper Midwest are among 130 set to be auctioned off nationally by the FCC next spring. All seven of the allotments have previously been awarded but were either not built or deleted after going silent.

Here are the allotments, listed by their largest potential market:

Mason City, IA: 92.9 licensed to Rockford, class A (6kW/100m), $25,000 opening bid. Radioactive LLC previously won this allotment in 2005 with a $482,000 bid. KYME received its license in 2008 but filed repeated requests for special temporary authority to remain silent, and the FCC ultimately canceled its license in 2015 after the station acknowledged being off the air for more than a year.

Waterloo, IA: 103.9 licensed to Dunkerton, class A, $60,000 opening bid. Ace Radio Corp. won this allotment in a 2006 auction with a $455,000 bid and later sold it to Magnolia Radio Corp., but the FCC deleted the license in 2014 after a long-term outage.

Grand Marais, MN: 96.9 class C3 (25kW/100m), $1,500 opening bid. This allotment was originally at Grand Portage for class C1 (100kW/300m), which would’ve provided a good signal to Thunder Bay. Resonance Media Group won it in a 2013 auction and moved the allotment to Grand Marais shortly before the 2016 construction deadline, but did not get the station on the air in time.

Jamestown, ND: 99.1 licensed to Gackle, class C1, $15,000. The frequency was first granted in 2006 and sold shortly before the original construction deadline, leading to an 18-month extension. However, the station was not built, and a late application to change its community of license to Tower City was denied because it required a comment period longer than the initial CP would’ve been valid.

Scottsbluff, NE: 98.1 licensed to Bayard, class A, $15,000. In Phase Broadcasting had won the allotment for 97.9 at Hyannis, class C1, in a 2007 auction with a $34,000 bid. It later downgraded the CP and changed the allotment to 98.1 at Bayard, but it was not built by the deadline.

Rhinelander, WI: Two allotments that the FCC just freed up last week will be up for auction: 100.9 licensed to Tomahawk, class C3, $10,000 opening bid, and 103.1 licensed To Crandon, class A, $1,500 opening bid. See the Oct. 4 story for a history of these allotments.

Auction No. 106 is scheduled to begin April 28, 2020.

Full listing of allotments to be auctioned nationally