So spectrum is a finite thing that has to be shared. The general framework for licensing of broadcast media following the 1934 law that established the FCC was that you get a license to use the spectrum in return for providing a service that is useful to the community in which the radio station exists.
In the “good old days” before deregulation under Bill Clinton in 1996, one owner could only own one FM and one AM station in a market (with an exception called a duopoly in special situations allowed two). The 1996 change did away with that rule, and the number of stations is based on the market size and how many other stations there are in the market.
So I’m currently working on finding the hard to find radio station websites, and stumbled on this one: http://www.gallupradio.com/
Gallup, New Mexico has a population of about 20,000. It was built as a railroad town.
According to my count, Gallup has 10 FM stations, 2 AM stations and 5 FM translators.
Millennium owns 3 FM stations, one AM and two translators. Clear Channel owns 3 FM stations. Non-local religious entities (EMF, Calvary Chapel) own 2 Fm stations and 3 FM translators. There is one NPR affiliate.
The Gober family owns an AM station (along with 2 other stations in New Mexico – there is virtually no information about what that station is or does.
The nearest place of any population is Window Rock, about 25 miles, which is approaching the fringe area for FM unless you build a tall antenna.
It looks like there are no TV stations at all in the town or within TV range – cable TV or satellite TV is it.
What started me writing this was observing that Millennium has 3 FM licenses and 1 AM, and all 4 of them are just carrying syndicated satellite music channels. The three Clear Channel stations also show no evidence of local programming. The only station that seems to have any focus on its own town is KNIZ-FM, which is a volunteer “community” radio station that seems mostly interested in the local Navajo population.
I went to high school in a town about this size in the 1970s, and it had 2 AM stations and 2 FM stations and stations that would come in from the other bigger cities in the area about 30 miles away.
What I’m wondering (and I don’t really have a firm answer) is whether the current attitude about licensing is really working. Would a town like Gallup be better served by 2 or 3 reasonably strong local stations employing people in the town or by 20 outlets just echoing the signals of mega corporations?…. Is local content even what people want, or are we all just one big homogeneous country? On the other hand, how many “real” radio stations can one town of 20,000 support financially?
