Studio Controversy
The station was involved in controversy when a rival broadcasting company complained to the FCC in July 2001 that WGRQ's main studios were located too far from the station's city of license, a violation of FCC regulations. WGRQ acknowledged that its studios were 28.8 miles (46.3 km) from the center of Colonial Beach, Virginia, but successfully asserted that it was in compliance with the law because "unique terrain" kept the studio location within the station's "principal community contour".
In August 2005, Telemedia Broadcasting applied for a "main studio waiver" which would have allowed them to relocate their broadcast studios even farther from the center of Colonial Beach. The new site, 2.5 miles (4.0 km) farther from the city center, would have allowed the station to eliminate a 100-foot tower built for the studio-transmitter link, a point of contention with the Spotsylvania County Planning Commission. The FCC denied this application on September 20, 2005.
In January 2010, Telemedia Broadcasting applied to the FCC to change WGRQ's city of license from Colonial Beach to Fairview Beach, Virginia. Fairview Beach is a census-designated place in King George County, Virginia, roughly 15 miles (24 km) WNW of Colonial Beach and significantly closer to the primary market of Fredericksburg. The FCC authorized the change on April 27, 2010.
Famous quotes containing the words studio and/or controversy:
“The studio has become the crucible where human genius at the apogee of its development brings back to question not only that which is, but creates anew a fantastic and conventional nature which our weak minds, impotent to harmonize it with existing things, adopt by preference, because the miserable work is our own.”
—Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)