The answer is not anytime soon. In what must have been one of the biggest broadcasting bonanzas in the country, a total of 13 applications were submitted to the FCC to build new, non-commercial/educational radio stations within a 50 kilometer radius of Erie. Because of the sheer volume, and the multiple apps on individual frequencies, they will most likely be all considered “mutually exclusive.” That means that the government will have to sort out the mess and award just a couple of the applicants the license they seek based on a point system.

The reason why the Erie area attracted a boo-coo of applications was the big hole in that part of the FM band left when WERG (Gannon) moved from 89.9 to 90.5, and expanded their listening audience to the entire county. That meant that there were no local licenses from the 89.1 frequency to the 90.3, a big space in a populated area like Erie. There is actually one 50,000 watt application on the books, from Call Communications Group based in Miami, FL, which would make it the highest power non-comm station in the area (not necessarily the largest coverage area, however, because of its tower height).

For the radio geeks, I put together a quick PDF list of the applications: Erie October 2007 NCE Applications

This recent window of applications came nine years after the last one, and it will probably take years more to award licenses and make room for more stations. Meanwhile, internet radio looms large in the present and future. Will it make all of this wrangling for frequencies a thing of the past? Maybe.