By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
A Lexington based broadcasting company is seeking to move its license to Faith.
Davidson County Broadcasting Co., Inc. which has been trying to get a permit for a 1,350-foot tower in Rowan County, has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to relocate its “community of license” of WTHZ to Faith.
The station broadcasts as Majic 94.1.
Gig Hilton, owner and president of Davidson County Broadcasting, talked with Faith town staff, asking to place the application book in the town hall for public inspection.
A Faith staffer said Hilton said the change in license would have no affect whatever on the town ó with no plans to move the station or employees to Faith.
Repeated efforts by the Post to contact Hilton were unsuccessful.
Mike Landis, a public information official with the FCC, said the application has been accepted and filed. He anticipates it will take several months to go through the approval process.
Landis said it doesn’t mean the station will make any change in its location. It would allow the station to be identified on air as being from Faith. The application also includes modification of transmission patterns to ensure Faith will get the signal.
A longtime local broadcaster said getting Faith as the city of license would effectively put the station in the Charlotte market, substantially enhancing the potential value to advertisers as opposed to the Greensboro market.
The application identifies the tower site by latitude and longitude, which is the site on Parker Loop Road where the county previously rejected a conditional use permit application over concerns of safety for the nearby private airstrip ó Miller Air Park.
In the most recent episode to locate the tower at the Parker Loop location, Hilton and the landowners, Richard and Dorcas Parker, sought to get around the need for a conditional use permit.
In May, the county’s Zoning Board of Adjustment upheld the Planning Director Ed Muire’s ruling that the exemption for an antenna didn’t apply to a tower.
Landis, the FCC officer, said if the application is approved it in no way affects the county’s decision related to broadcast tower.