This story courtesy of the Foundsry Town Times-Gazette
Mayor Jimmy Nobbs, owner and publisher of the Times-Gazette newspaper announced today that he has reached an agreement to purchase local television station WFTB from Mrs. Eldon Turner, the wife and business partner of the late Mr. Turner, who passed away recently. The station, which ceased operations in 1972, was preserved intact by the Turners in hopes that they would one day be able to renovate and renew broadcasting. Mrs. Turner decided to accept an offer from Mayor Nobbs, because “It was becoming a real hardship to maintain all the equipment. The mice were always getting into the wiring, and our cats were unable to control them. My nephew expressed some interest in fixing things up, but he hasn’t much of a feel for electronics – just old cars.”
The FCC has granted a license to WFTB to continue for the present with analog-only broadcasts under a special exemption from current digital broadcast regulations. Due to the low power of the existing transmitter, which reaches only the Bessemer County area, they qualified for this exception.
Nobbs has started a Go Fund Me campaign and will be distributing contribution jars to local merchants in hopes of raising funds to switch to a new digital transmitter in the future. “We need to keep up with the technology,” declared Nobbs.
He hopes to create local programming as well as run syndicated programs from various media providers. This promises to be a major boon for the town, since the local cable service only provides access to a few major broadcast networks, and people are getting tired of the content.