LPFM Stations Are Rolling Out
by Ken R.
Very few initiatives of the FCC have caused as
much controversy as low-power FM.
The battle lines were drawn with the NAB, many
large broadcast groups and a lot of engineers on one side and
a small but diverse group of schools, churches and equipment manufacturers
on the other. But having written, the hand moved on.
LPFM is a reality. The initial wave of construction
permits was granted and at this writing early operations are hitting
the airwaves.
Radio World contacted several LPFM license-holders
to find out about their facilities, their broadcast agendas and
their views on the new service.
Church chat
The largest number of licensees are churches.
First Baptist Church of Mansfield, La., will
be on the air with KEPT(LP) in December. Dave Vise, program operations
manager and youth minister, will air a mostly automated, music-intensive
format provided by American Family Radio based in Tupelo, Miss.
"We’re going to go with some country-gospel
and adult contemporary music in our retirement community here
near Shreveport," Vise said. "We have a radio/TV committee
with about seven or eight people and they asked me to handle it
because of my 22 years of broadcast experience."
The station will run some local news, information
and weather, which will be inserted into the format using a Smarts
Broadcast system. Vise will add local sports and other community
events gradually.
"Our signal will probably reach about a
10- to 15-mile radius and our tower is already up," said
Vise. "The studio is under construction right now."
Vise believes his operation will pose no threat
to local commercial broadcasters.
"We will totally depend on local underwriting,"
Vise said. "There is no other signal in our market to interfere
with and we won’t affect signals from Shreveport."
Vise believes that he will be filling a void
in his radio market.
"We want to reach out to the community
and our desire is to have a first-rate product, not just a room
full of wires throwing out a signal," Vise said. "I’m
looking forward to it and my congregation and community are excited,
too."
Another school of thought
WRFR(LP) was licensed to Penobscot School in
Rockland, Maine. The school’s co-founder is Joe Steinberger,
who plans to use his station as the voice of his community. The
call letters stand for "Radio from Rockland."
Steinberger plans a special emphasis on live,
local music.
"We also hope to feature literature readings
from local authors, stories for children and definitely some news
and call-in type programs," Steinberger said.
"Our school is a center for language learning
and people from various countries teach German, French, Italian
and other languages to adults here. We may offer news in those
languages on our station."
The target air date is Jan. 1, 2002. The studio
will be a simple one based on an I-Mac with software from Logram
International of Paris, France.
"They made us a gift of their software,
which we are translating into English," Steinberger said.
"We will be using a small Behringer board that was designed
as a mixer for musicians, but it suits our purposes."
WRFR will use an all-volunteer staff, including
Steinberger, although he may need to hire a scheduling secretary.
The station budget for its first year of operation is $10,000.
"Obviously it’s not about the money
here," Steinberger said. "Commercial stations will do
anything to keep other people from competing with them and the
government’s interest is to make sure they don’t get
away with that. The airwaves should belong to everybody and anything
else takes something away from the American people."
Steinberger believes his goal is not to compete
with other local broadcast operators such as Clear Channel.
"If there were a technology to increase
tenfold the number of FMs without interfering with existing stations,
the NAB would still be opposed," Steinberger said. "But
I have no sympathy for them. They should not be allowed to control
that."
The station is being consulted by Pier Paolo
Santorelli of Radio Popolare in Milan, Italy, which is also a
community radio station.
"He flew across the Atlantic to help us
for three weeks," Steinberger said, "at no charge."
Governmental SNAFU
LPFM has been a complicated matter for the Georgia
Department of Transportation. Kim Law is senior public information
specialist for the department, which was granted several LPFM
licenses.
"We were mainly looking to use these stations
for hurricane evacuation and extreme weather information,"
said Law. "We could also have used them for traffic control
with our Intelligent Transportation System which is headquartered
in Atlanta. However, we’ve decided not to do anything with
the licenses."
With many LPFM applicants across the country
coming up empty-handed, this may sound strange.
"The licenses granted turned out to not
be in the areas that would be of much use to us," Law said.
"We also determined that we were not ready to meet the rules
requiring 24-hour operation. We are currently trying to find another
governmental agency here in Georgia to take over for us."
But it gets more complicated. The DOT applied
for ten licenses. It was granted three and were turned down for
two. However, to find locations for the remaining five, additional
expensive and time-consuming studies would have to be completed.
"There is also a Technology Authority in
Georgia and they wanted to get involved, which was another layer
of government," said Law. "And FEMA owns the AM frequencies
that would actually be better for us for our emergency information
anyway."
Law said her department was forced to put the
whole idea on hold and let the licenses expire in 12 months if
a solution can’t be found.
"The DOT in Illinois is going forward like
crazy, but here everyone is fighting for control," Law said.
"It’s been a fascinating process, however."
Mr. LPFM
Fred R. Morton, CBRE of Sugarland, Texas is a
commercial broadcast owner and contract engineer. He also owns
the Web site www.lpfm.com.
"The reason I started the site is that
I fear that if people put radio stations on the air wherever they
want and with whatever power they want, chaos will result,"
Morton said. "I do not condone pirates because of the damage
they cause and I just try to provide the best information I can."
Morton said major broadcast groups are needlessly
scared of LPFM operators.
"I fail to see the harm in a non-commercial
100-watt signal," Morton said.
He believes that if the big broadcast groups
hadn’t gone "consolidation crazy," there may never
have been a need for LPFM.
"The whole movement may have been a backlash
to rampant consolidation because many out there had the perception
that one or two guys owned everything."
Morton said these smaller groups just wanted
to have their own voice on the radio band.
"There are some Web sites out there that
are militantly against commercial broadcasters, but I am not one
of those," Morton said.
