The FCC has agreed to let KOMU-TV Columbia, Missouri, move from a VHF channel (8) to a UHF channel (27), pending public comment on the proposal.
Back in October, KOMU-TV, a commercial NBC/CW affiliate owned by the University of Missouri, sought a waiver of the FCC's freeze on full-power TV's seeking channel changes so the FCC would consider its petition to change channels. Following the DTV transition, UHF's became the more powerful stations and KOMU told the FCC that since that time “[t]he station regularly receives complaints from viewers who report being able to receive all other signals in the market, including a low power television station operating on a UHF channel, but not KOMU-TV.”
Also Read: FCC Unfreezes TV Station Minor Modifications
It pointed out that it could not boost its power on Ch. 8 because that would cause interference to another station and that while moving to Ch. 27 would result in a slight decrease in the number of people who could get the station, that would only be 410 people in total.
The FCC instituted the freeze in May 2011 in anticipation of the incentive auction and repack and the complex channel moves associated with that effort.
But between Oct. 27 and this week the FCC lifted that freeze, so the FCC dismissed the waiver request as moot and accepted the petition Wednesday (Dec. 16), saying it proposed to grant the change at a power level of 1,000 Kw and antenna height above average terrain of 266 ft.
