In December of 2010 the House and Senate passed the Local Community Radio Act by voice vote in both chambers. Reps. Dave Loebsack (D) and Tom Latham (R) were co-sponsors of this important legislation.  President Obama signed the LPFM act into law on January 5, 2011. 

For everything you need to know about how to apply for a LPFM station in your community, here are some links.   

Start a Radio Station – Prometheus Radio Project   

Pacifica – How to Start a Community Radio Station

LPFMStations.com

Join LPFM Yahoogroup

FCC Report Vindicates Community Radio, Again
Prometheus Radio Project  prometheusradio.org/fcc-report

On January 5, the FCC released a long-awaited report on the economic impact of low power FM (LPFM) stations on their full-power commercial neighbors. The FCC’s report was required by the Local Community Radio Act, in a provision that had long been requested by commercial broadcasters fighting against the expansion of community radio. As expected, the 100+ page study revealed that LPFM stations do not cause harm to other stations.

In the words of the report, “the presenceof LPFM stations has no measurable effect on the economic performance of the average full-service commercial FM station.”

What does this say about the broader impact of LPFM stations? Although they have a neutral effect on other stations, the report includes several conclusions about the positive impact stations have in their communities. The authors note that “LPFM stations appear to be much more likely to carry a variety of programming genres than full-service commercial FM stations.” Instead of subscribing to a single common format, most community radio stations include one or sometimes many genres of music and talk that are otherwise unavailable.

Measuring listenership is difficult because most LPFM stations are located outside the markets rated by Arbitron (though this will change with the passage of the Local Community Radio Act). However, for the LPFM stations that are rated, the report found that many achieved high values of what’s called Time Spent Listening (“TSL”). This rating “suggests that the popular LPFM stations tend to attract a small but loyal fan base, which tunes in for long periods of time and/or switches stations less frequently than the average full-service station listener.”

For community radio producers and supporters, these conclusions will be no surprise. But it’s helpful that the FCC’s own research supports the common-sense notion that community radio serves a greater diversity of listeners and needs than do commercial stations.

To inform the report, Prometheus submitted the results of our LPFM survey data on stations financials as well as earlier formal comments to the FCC. The authors extensively cite both our filings, even referencing what we think is the main point: “Prometheus argues that the premise for the study is flawed because the Commission’s goals would be well served if LPFM stations are providing competition to the radio industry and because incumbents do not have a right to be protected from competition.”

After all, even if LPFM stations did present an economic threat to their neighbors, wouldn’t this be cause for celebration, as commercial stations would be forced to better serve their communities in order to retain listeners? As we noted in our comments, the FCC should not be in the business of protecting incumbent broadcasters from new ones.

The study also mentions our argument that many LPFM stations are reaching new listeners who are otherwise unserved by local media, meaning that stations don’t necessarily draw listeners away from other stations, but rather increase radio listenership in general. For many of us, commercial radio isn’t worth listening to, because it doesn’t reflect our local communities, our language, our politics, or our culture. Expanding community radio may actually increase the viability of FM radio as more people find a reason to tune in.