St. Pete exploring sale of its Class A TV

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One way to make sure that your city council meetings get on the air is to have your own television station and simply put them on your own schedule. But that and other city programs are available on cable and online, so it is thinking about parting with over-air facility WSPF-CA.


According to Tampa Bay Online, the council is exploring the sale of the station, but at the moment has no clue what it might be worth. Florida brokerage specialist Doyle Hadden is on hand to try to figure that out.

“The hard part is, we really don’t know the value of the asset,” said the marketing and communications head Beth Herendeen, whose department ultimately runs the station.

Since there are other options for viewing city programming, and because as a noncommercial low-power, limited-range station it does not receive ratings, the city has no idea how many St. Petersburg citizens watch the channel straight off the air, picking it up with old-fashioned rabbit ears.

However, it is strongly suspected that the number of over-air viewers is very small, bringing in to question the $200K-$300K investment the city makes in the station.

If it is sold, it will come with a CP to upgrade to digital broadcast.