Radio Survivor has the most comprehensive weekly coverage of low-power FM. Read our About LPFM page to learn the fundamentals of this unique class of community radio.
The FCC opened up an important licensing window for new noncommercial FM stations in 2007, announcing the first round of license winners in 2008. However another 59 licenses remained up in the air due to the Commission needing to pick a winner amongst competing applications. The FCC announced those winners on Tuesday [PDF]. The Commission […]
On Friday the FCC’s Media Bureau quietly announced that it adopted an order to allow FM stations broadcasting a digital HD signal to increase their power levels up a maximum of 10% of the power of their main analog signal. While the National Association of Broadcasting and iBiquity have been agitating for this change for […]
I first heard about the Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP) when I moved to Chicago in the spring of 2008. For all intents and purposes the project grew out of the former incarnation of Loyola University’s WLUW-FM which operated as a community radio station from 1997 to June 2008. In 2001 Loyola announced that it […]
As I said in my introduction to our subjective and opinionated review of radio in the 2000s, I still think it was darn near impossible to predict how the medium of radio would end up at the beginning of 2010. Sure, the seeds for satellite radio, HD radio, low-power FM, internet radio and MP3s were […]
Today there are close to 1000 more noncommercial, locally-programmed community radio stations on the air in the US than a decade ago. The reason for this is the low-power FM radio service created by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000. While Congressional intervention cut the new service off at the knees at the end of […]
Hmm. It seems like there’s a fair chance that a law opening up new possibilities for Low Power FM might actually get to prez Obama’s desk this or next year. I’ve been skeptical up until now, but Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington’s Local Community Radio Act S 592 is scheduled for markup and committee vote […]
Today the House Commerce Committee unanimously passed the Local Radio Act by voice vote, opening up the gates to send the bill for a vote by the full House. This bipartisan action is the best hope the restoration of low-power FM has seen since its wings were clipped back in 2000. When the FCC created […]
Those strange political bedfellows Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NE) have got their Low Power FM bill out of committee and one step closer to passage on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Congressmember Mike Doyle (D-PA) came to today’s House Commerce subcommittee hearing on the Federal Communications Commission with a question posed to all the new Commissioners. “Do you recommend that Congress lift the restrictions on LPFM stations—the so-called ‘third adjacent protections’?” “Based on what I know, yes,” new Chair Julius Genachowski quickly replied. “Yes,” responded new […]
The San Francisco Bay Area has been home to a wide range of radio pioneers and renegades, from the very early days of broadcasting with Doc Herrold’s experiments 100 years ago to freeform radio in the early days of FM in the 1960s to pirate radio advocates like Stephen Dunifer of Free Radio Berkeley. And […]
