Making new FM stations out of thin air

This article from The Michigan Radio guide points to a new trend that hasn’t got a lot of momentum yet but probably will – and is going to disrupt this directory 🙂

http://www.michiguide.com/archives2011/2012/01/

Digital HD FM radio is right up there in Google competing with George Bush for the search “dismal failure”.   After a decade, digital FM still has no traction, largely because the radio industry wanted it to fail.  The NAB exists to protect its members from new competition, even from its own members – so they colluded to make sure that HD couldn’t make revenue and wouldn’t create new competition to existing station formats.

The FCC would really like to make the FM band more “efficient” in its use of spectrum, and make room for Low Power FM stations for ACORN and La Raza…  so they’ve relaxed a couple of their rules about FM translators.

About two years ago, a new FM station showed up in Atlanta that had Radio people puzzled – they thought at first it was an illegal pirate station.   How did a brand new FM station show up in “their” market that they didn’t know about.

What it turned out was that someone had the idea of renting an unused HD2/3/4 channel on a station they didn’t own, and then using an FM translator to “repeat” the programming of the HD channel using an analog FM translator.   There won’t be any traditional FM station that is the home signal for the repeater.

So you want to get Bubba the Love Sponge in the Detroit market, but you can’t afford 30 or 40 million dollars to buy an existing FM station…   you use WPGR FM/HD3, and repeat the signal on W232CA….  giving the Station ID as “Welcome to WPGR FM/HD3 and W232CA”, Detroit Michigan).

FM translators are cheap to set up and the licenses are generally going for maybe 25k-100k depending on market size.   They don’t have the power and reach of a full FM station, but they still can reach a large audience in a major market.

Here is the coverage map of this FM Translator:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=W232CA&service=FX&status=L&hours=U

This one is only 99 watts, but still covers a pretty good swath of Detroit and the the suburbs north of 8 mile road.    FM translators also seem to be able to “move” very easily with the FCC rules and the FCC generally allows them to increase power without a lot of review, as long as other stations don’t complain about interference within their protected coverage area.

The FCC rules on licensing of 1000s of new Low Power FM stations should be hitting soon – FM Translators and Low Power FM stations are competing for the same “turf”, with some in the FCC (and especially inside the White House) wanting to see LPFM take over – while the NAB folks like their monopoly, and don’t want either – but would prefer FM translators that generate revenue from their unused HD channels over the LPFM stations popping up in “their” market.

FCC document about FM Translators vs LPFM (pdf)

2012 is going to be an interesting year for radio.