channel 54 allocation. This application was designated for hearing with one by Symphony Network Association, Inc., in 1964. In 1965, the UHF table of allocations was overhauled, and channel 21 was substituted for 54 on Chapman's application. The FCC granted the permit to Chapman in August 1965; however, the FCC chose to resume hearings on the matter after other applicants protested the granting of Chapman's petition. (In the meantime, the Chapmans built, and then sold, WCFT-TV in Tuscaloosa.) One of the new bidders was a startup station—WBMG (channel 42), the first commercial UHF station in Birmingham—which hoped it could replace channel 42 with 21. When the contest resumed, there were five applicants. Besides Chapman and WBMG, there was Tele-Mac of Birmingham, owned by John McClendon, who also ran a chain of Black-oriented radio stations including WENN in Birmingham; Alabama Television Corporation, owned by John S. Jemison; and Birmingham Broadcasting Company, which was owned by Black businessman A. G. Gaston. Tele-Mac bowed out in late November, leaving four parties seeking the channel. Hearing examiner James Kraushaar's initial decision, released in September 1968, gave the nod to Alabama Television, based on its superior technical proposal. However, Chapman and WBMG contested the award, and the FCC agreed, finding that Alabama Television had failed to contact Black people in the process of ascertainment of community needs required of prospective licensees. WBMG's petition also raised a 1969 incident in which a cemetery owned by Jemison refused to bury the body of a Black soldier killed in Vietnam. In 1971, two other Alabama Television shareholders, George J. Mitnick and Joseph Engel, were sued by the United States Department of Justice for violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and the FCC opened new hearings on the firm's qualifications in light of the lawsuit. Meanwhile, another applicant, Birmingham Broadcasting—which pledged the first integrated TV station in the country—was facing trouble in its ownership group. One of its stakeholders was Oscar Hyde, who was convicted on extortion charges in 1968 but still owned a third of the firm, putting it at a serious disadvantage in comparative hearing until Hyde sold his stake in 1973. WBMG had dropped out by this point, leaving Chapman and Birmingham Broadcasting the lone contenders for the construction permit; the Hyde stake was still being contested, but the FCC found the programming proposals from Chapman inadequate. Furthermore, the two financial institutions that had