The NAB’s enforcer against competition (the FCC) has dragged their feet now for 10 years trying to fend off Low Power FM radio stations, which are in part a compromise to discourage “pirate” stations stealing unused FM spectrum
http://www.abqjournal.com/main/220602/opinion/lowpower-fm-stations-give-people-more-voice.html
LPFM rules are designed for the most part to make them impossible to sustain financially without breaking the law. Even so, 1000 or more LPFM radio stations are expected to file applications in October.
I currently do list LPFM stations although they are not shown by default. A lot of them are run by former big radio companies – they say success is the best revenge.
There are currently about 800 LPFM stations licensed before the FCC slammed on the brakes – about 1/3 are religious stations (mostly 7th day Adventists), 1/4 are non-profit “community” groups and the rest are a smattering of various things – colleges find them useful for their reduced record keeping requirements
Just think how much more work this creates for the NSA to record and translate the programming of these potential internaional terrorists
Current list
Can’t argue with that! 🙂
Yes you can!
No I can’t. 😉
“There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand digital entertainment, and those who don’t.” – CC1s121LrBGT 20130718
I thought digital was binary…Oh I get it. Sometimes you aren’t very nice to those of us who work the graveyard shift.
When you say LPFM, CC says KWSS http://www.kwss.org/
Woot – licensed for 3 watts.
But that’s enough to qualify to be listed here… It means you’re legit!
It is a non-profit commercial station… independent with a huge playlist and mostly new music. I like to have it on in the background… Mornings, Amy Goodman is on for an hour, and there are specialized shows for jazz and other types of music… but it is mainly new music that sounds like it was recorded in the 60s-80s.
Aye, there is the rub. LPFM stations have to be non-commercial. They have to follow the same rules as the sub 92 MHz stations – you can have underwriters and describe them and give contact information, but no call to action. This is pretty flagrantly violated, and never should have been the rule – but the NAB would never let Congress to allow actual competition for ad dollars in “their” part of the FM band.
Since LPFM reaches at most 5 miles, it would be quite a challenge to survive on donations from listeners within your listening area. A middle road is the station can direct people to the station’s web site which can then list the things the underwriters sell and have calls to action
You can also get more creative by just working product placements into the chatter – the hosts might talk about how much they enjoyed having dinner last night at Ted’s Steak House after they took their car into the Tire store and got a new set of tires – and then say something like “and we do value their support for our station”…
Opps- maybe they are in fact non-commercial. But they definitely plug businesses on KWSS. Maybe they are doing something Rowan and Martin suggested in the 60s. Copying a paragraph from the description of a Youtube posting:
“When cigarette advertising on TV was banned in the United States, the comedy show Laugh-In spoofed how manufacturers might get their message across subliminally: “Let’s take a coupla boats up to Newport and Salem.” “