Though we’ve been waiting some three years, the Federal Communications Commission has finally announced the third-ever application window for low-power FM (LPFM) stations, running November 1 – 8, 2023. An application window is a set period of time during which qualified organizations and entities may submit their applications to get a broadcast license. The FCC […]
For the first time, the FCC just granted booster stations to two LPFMs in California. Like the name implies, a booster helps a station to fill in parts of its broadcast area where geographic impediments–like hills or mountains–prevent the signal from being received well where it otherwise should be heard. Unlike a translator repeater station, […]
Today REC Networks announced that it has begun work on the REC Radio History Project. It has started to mine the FCC database for historic AM station information and will be adding that material to the REC Broadcast Query tool. So far, it’s added information related to Los Angeles stations KFI and KHJ. According to […]
This past week was fairly quiet on the low-power FM front compared to what we’ve seen most of the year so far. Only six more construction permits have been issued since last week, bringing the count to 1047 applications granted. There were some interesting and informative comments to last week’s LPFM Watch which reported on […]
This week we’re up to 983 low-power FM construction permits granted, leaving a little more than 100 singleton, non competitive, applications left to be processed. More Top 20 Urban Stations As I reported a couple of weeks ago, the first LPFM in the urban core of a Top 20 market was granted in Phoenix. Since […]
Summing up the past year in LPFM is not difficult. We had the second-ever licensing opportunity, wherein 2780 applications for new community radio stations were submitted. While that was fewer than many advocates had predicted or hoped for, it’s undeniable that this licensing window will lead to a significant expansion in community radio in the […]
We’ve reviewed LPFM applications in Los Angeles and San Francisco, so in this week’s LPFM Watch it’s time to dive into apps from the nation’s Second City, Chicago. I also take a look at the current count of applications that have been accepted and dismissed. Finally, I review instructions for telling the FCC that you […]
LPFM advocates have had about four full days to mine the FCC’s database of applications from the filing window. Broadcast engineering firms Skywaves and REC Networks both put the exact count of applications at 2,799, which is fewer than the 2,819 I reported last week. According to the CommLawBlog the difference can be accounted for […]
As they promised, a coalition of low-power community radio support groups submitted a filing with the FCC today, the Commission’s first day back at work after the government shutdown, addressing the LPFM licensing window that was originally scheduled to open this past Tuesday. That filing has already been posted to the FCC’s database and is […]
How many new LPFM stations will there be? That is one of the biggest questions on the mind of community radio supporters, especially since the FCC’s March ruling resolving the tension between processing the backlog of translator applications and saving room for new low-power stations. Radio World recently published a short survey of best guesses […]
