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Licence goes to the highest bidder !
Whatever happened to "fit and proper person " to hold a licence?
All those weeks sweating over licence applications to show station was worthy of licence renewal !!!
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The last new metro stations based on the "fit and proper person" test aka "the beauty parade" of which I'm aware was for the first round of FM stations that went to air in 1980.
Perhaps based on the maxim of "money talks and BS walks," the next rounds of FM stations (Nova, Vega) were simply auctioned to the highest bidder. That's the simple/short answer. In reality it's much more complex than that. Technically, even the highest bidder could be knocked back if they were deemed to be an unfit and improper person but no one has failed that test yet.
There were also some AM to FM conversions which were mostly "silent auctions." - Ed.