MeTV FM and 13 other FrankenFM stations now have an official and permanent home on the far left end of the FM dial. Like I expected, on July 20 the FCC approved a report and order allowing these now-digital low-power TV channel 6 stations to keep their experimental analog radio transmitters on the air. It’s a very narrow ruling, premitting only […]
It’s been nearly three years since the FCC first announced that a new low-power FM (LPFM) application window would be forthcoming. Now we know that November 1 – 8, 2023 will be the third-ever opportunity for qualified non-profits to apply for a license. Jennifer, Eric and Paul review all the pertinent details, explaining why there […]
Going into the 2023 application window for new low-power FM stations we are unlikely to see the kind of massive expansion of the sort we had after the 2013 window. That’s because there are many fewer open frequencies, stemming from the fact that there are simply more FM radio stations on the dial in 2023 […]
Today there are 13 FrankenFM radio stations broadcasting in the US. These are vestiges of the analog TV past, given a short term lease by the Federal Communications Commission, now with a chance at a longer life. Until July 2022 FrankenFMs were the analog audio signals of low-power TV (LPTV) stations on channel 6, which […]
The FCC is not in the business of taking licensed radio stations off the air. This is something I’ve been telling community and college radio folks for well over a decade, especially when they get themselves tied up in knots of anxiety trying to read certain regulations like literary theory, worried that a fine over […]
The annual Infinite Dial survey from Edison Research was recently released, showing what people in the US are listening to, and where. It even includes social media platforms like TikTok, which Eric observes young people often use like radio, playing in the background as they go about daily activities. We review the stats, and also […]
Few topics create as much anxiety at college and community radio stations – not to mention many a commercial radio morning show – than broadcast indecency. Since the dawn of broadcast regulation in the US there have been legal restrictions on the kind of speech that may be broadcast on the public airwaves, with a […]
The Fairness Doctrine – a Federal Communications Commission rule that’s been out of commission since the 20th century – just doesn’t seem to die, at least in the minds of politicians, the press and much of the public. Politicos of many political stripes trot out its specter as a bogeyman any time its convenient, while […]
Last Tuesday, July 13, was the last day for analog low-power TV in the US, also marking the last broadcasts of most Franken FMs – legacy channel 6 stations’ whose audio is heard at the low end of the FM dial at 87.7 FM. As I noted then, two stations have retained their FM signals […]
July 13, 2021 was the last day on-air for 95% of the Franken FMs still around. That’s because 11:59 PM marked the final deadline for low-power TV stations to turn off their analog signals, 12 years and 31 days after full-power stations went all-digital. These vestigial analog broadcasts were primarily of use to a few […]
