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Tougaloo College’s TV station WLOO Vicksburg, Miss., is not...

Tougaloo College’s TV station WLOO Vicksburg, Miss., is not operated by Raycom, said WLOO in an ex parte response (http://tinyurl.com/nm3359r) to a National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters letter (CD March 13 p21). Owned and operated by an historically black…

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college, WLOO said it was “disappointed that NABOB, an organization dedicated to promoting minority station ownership, based its critique of WLOO’s operations on unreliable resources such as Wikipedia,” the letter said. WLOO was highlighted last week in a news release from FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai holding the station up as an example of the useful effects of joint sales agreements (JSAs), which the commission is considering limiting. The NABOB letter challenged the beneficial nature of WLOO’s sharing arrangements, and used information from Raycom’s website as evidence the station was largely being operated by Raycom. That information is incorrect, WLOO said. “WLOO’s relationship to Raycom Media is limited to rental of transmitter space on a tower owned by Raycom,” said WLOO, also outlining plans to eventually relocate the transmitter away from the Raycom tower. WLOO “competes with all of the other stations in the market” and “it sets its own course with respect to all of its operational, programming, and financial decisions,” the filing said. WLOO also took issue with a NABOB proposal for using JSAs to increase minority broadcast ownership by encouraging stations involved in JSAs to transfer control of the sidecar station to a minority owner. Such a system would “jeopardize WLOO’s public service and growth as a minority-owned station,” the filing said. “WLOO anticipates that it will someday be able to hire its own sales staff, but the imposition of an artificial deadline and burdensome reporting requirements would be problematic,” the filing said. NABOB didn’t comment.