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By PAUL KASKO The Yuma Daily Sunfor opening the 316,000-watt station.A new Yuma television station will go on the air in early 1988 if plans continue on schedule, The Sun was told Wednesday.Tucson attorneys Bates A. Butler III and James Mather, and Stuttgart, Ark., businessman Clyde Pettit Jr., now own the construction permit for KCAA (TV) Channel 11. They bought it for $30,000 from the former owner, Manning Telecasting Inc., through federal bankruptcy court last year.The new owners hope their station becomes an ABC-TV affiliate once they get it on the air sometime next January, Mather said Wednesday.Mather, Butler and Pettit each staked $10,000 to buy the permit and form Yuma Television Association. The address on file at the Federal Communications Commission for YTA is 120 W. Broadway, Tucson — the address of Butler’s law office.Mark Berlin, an attorney adviser for the FCC’s television branch in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday that the purchase was approved bythe FCC Jan. 30, 1986, and finalized July 3.FCC regulations state that YTA has one year from the purchase date to build the station. But because of an FCC error, Berlin predicted YTA would be granted a six-month extension to January 1988.I would find it hard to believe they wouldn’t give it to us,” Mather said of the extension. If they don’t, it would kill the project because of the lead time needed to put this thing together.”If YTA failed to meet the FCCdeadline, whether extended or not, the construction permit would be canceled, the call letters deleted and the station opened for other applications, said Berlin.Since being awarded the permit, YTA has conducted a marketing study, selected a transmission tower site and hired Walter Styles, a TV consultant-engineer from Phoenix, to continue preparationsRight now we’re getting our finances together to finance the station start-up,” said Mather. That includes the cost of the equipment, a studio and the working capital needed for the first year of operation.”Styles estimated the cost of the technical equipment at $1.5 million.That doesn’t include the cost of building a new studio in Yuma, which I will recommend they do,” he said this morning. We are looking at many sites.”Style said he recommended that YTA’s transmission tower be built about 25 miles west of Yuma on Black Mountain in Imperial County, where similar towers are located.The power of the station would be relatively the same as KYEL-TV Channel 13,” he said.KYEL-TV, a NBC affiliate, ispresently the only station operating in Yuma. Local television owners can also receive KECY-TV Channel 9, a CBS affiliate, from El Centro without cable, but those wanting to watch ABC programming must pay for cable to receiveKTVK-TV Channel 3, ABC’s Phoenix affiliate.Once we are on the air, we hope ABC will come down and take a look at us,” said Mather.Arnold Marfoglia, vice president of ABC affiliate relations in New York City, said the rating services will determine whether the new Yuma station would qualify as anABC affiliate.We would have to ask the rating services about ABC coverage down there,” Marfoglia said this morning. If it is determined that coverage is less than efficient, then we would consider it. We would also ask that the station be able to deliver 5,000 new homes to the network every night.There’s a whole bunch of other things too, like financial stability, news and promotions. We won’tSee TV, Page 2
Newspaper Details
Yuma Sun
Yuma, Arizona, US
Thu, Jan 29, 1987
Page 1
Full Page
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Sammi B.
NA 09 Jul 2022
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