DOBBS FERRY, N.Y. — The company behind a low-power TV station licensed to West Haven, Conn., has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court over the FCC’s denial, and appeal courts’ concurring views, that have prevented the facility from upgrading to Class A status under the Low Power Protection Act.
Radio Communications Corporation (RCC), led by Robert Knapp, submitted a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari seeking the nation’s highest court to take on its case against the FCC.
With Timothy Welch of Hill and Welch representing RCC, RCC seeks to get the Supreme Court to become the ultimate arbiter as to whether WETN-LD, on Channel 16 in Allington, Conn., can convert its facility from a LPTV.
In February 2025, RCC paid a $425 license modification fee with the Commission with the intention of doing so. But, it was the FCC’s determination that WETN was ineligible for LPPA protection. This was upheld in D.C. judicial appeals.
Dissatisfied still, the RCC continues to profess that the LPPA “implicitly protects” members of the NAB and cable TV service providers rather than WETN’s owner and other LPTV licensees “covering more than 99% of the nation’s population.”
Then, there is the contention from RCC that an appeals court “negated the small local market DMA definition, finding that ‘local markets’ are ‘not equivalent’ to the system established by Nielsen, which defines larger geographic regions than community.” That’s key to understanding the dilemma for RCC with WETN, as it is a LPTV in New Haven County, Conn., home to the city of New Haven and one-half of the expansive Hartford-New Haven TV market.
With the Retro TV digital multicast network at the heart of WETN’s programming lineup, the W24EZ-D seeks one final chance to dispute the determination that it is prohibited from Class A status because it operates in a DMA with more than 95,000 television households, as determined by either Nielsen Media Research.
This would require the Supreme Court to acquiesce to RCC that it gets an alternative interpretation of the qualification criteria, arguing that the LPPA indeed offers eligibility to low-power TV stations that operate in a DMA of any size that have a “community of license” of less than 95,000 TV households.
That argument has failed to sway any judge, or the Commission.
