Some people who have applied to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to operate a radio station are actually dying off before their applications are processed, because the wait is so long.

• Critics say the FCC hasn't decided a contested radio case since 1994, when a court threw out the agency's old rules and ordered new ones.

• Its backlog is now 873 undecided applications for 212 new stations.

• Delays have run to 10 years, and one North Carolina attorney says applicants "are actually living out their lives and some of them are dying, waiting for the agency to act."

• Outgoing FCC chairman Reed Hundt admits the agency is "in gridlock."

Hundt wants to auction licenses for cash, or for what he calls "quantifiable public-service commitments." He says, however, that he can't muster a majority of commissioners to support the proposal.

Senate Commerce Committee chairman John McCain (R-AZ) has asked the FCC to suspend rewriting its rules while he works on legislation to auction new FM licenses.

More than 1,000 radio stations were bought and sold last year in deals totaling $25 billion -- up from $8 billion in 1995.

Source: John R. Wilke, "A Rock 'n' Roll Station is Pushed Off the Air in Bureaucratic Morass," Wall Street Journal, June 18, 1997.