Is mooter a word? If not, can we coin it, as in it doesn’t get much mooter than this? Anyway, the parade of out-to-lunch license renewal challenges continues. Michael Erickson, Gerald John Mehrab and Ralph Amitrano Jr. fired off identical petitions to deny a license renewal to Multicultural Radio Broadcasting’s WNYG-AM Babylon NY. Their beef? They were concerned that the station was going to pull up stakes and move to Elizabeth NJ. There was only one problem with that contention: Multicultural’s application to make that major move was denied. The FCC noted that the objections were therefore moot, but took advantage of the situation to go on the record with a simple fact: The time to object to a city of license change is when the city of license change is applied for. Applying for such a move is perfectly within Multicultural’s rights and in no way impugns its fitness as a licensee, so the petitions to deny the renewal would have gone nowhere regardless of which way the thumbs were pointing on the Babylon-to-Elizabeth matter.
