The FCC today acted against a 100-watt LPFM (Low Power FM--100 weatts or less)
station in Oklahoma.
They're putting on notice all NCE (Non-commercial Educational) stations that
they're going to start cracking down on blatant commercialism below 91.9 MHz
FM.

About time. "Public" stations are subsidized by tax payers in the form of
government grants, tax-deductions for contributions, and free spectrum.
Since most play only CDs and rebroadcast NPR news (as good as it is), they
really don't earn their free ride.

A DJ playing a stack of CDs is NOT educational radio.

Public stations pay no taxes, take tax monies to equip themselves, and take
advertising in violation of the law.

And people criticize the FCC for prosecuting Pirates?

Here is FCC link to .PDF file,
you can change suffiox to .doc or .txt

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...-04-2609A1.pdf

Radioman390 wrote:

The FCC today acted against a 100-watt LPFM (Low Power FM--100 weatts or less)
station in Oklahoma.
They're putting on notice all NCE (Non-commercial Educational) stations that
they're going to start cracking down on blatant commercialism below 91.9 MHz
FM.

Funny you should mention that..

Last night I was trying to tune in a local college 2k watt NCE station.
However a pop music "clone" commerical canadian station on the same freq
was blowing away my reception with their 100k watt tx. Both were just
under 90mhz on the dial. Its a shame the fcc can't reach across the border.

About time. "Public" stations are subsidized by tax payers in the form of
government grants, tax-deductions for contributions, and free spectrum.
Since most play only CDs and rebroadcast NPR news (as good as it is), they
really don't earn their free ride.

A DJ playing a stack of CDs is NOT educational radio.

Public stations pay no taxes, take tax monies to equip themselves, and take
advertising in violation of the law.

And people criticize the FCC for prosecuting Pirates?

Honestly, I'm with you about NPR. However, something is better then
nothing.
What I don't understand is this rant about public stations, the LPFM
stations around here are community based stations. Sure, some of them
share some of the same content as the commerical stations (cds/pop
music). However, Its a lot different when they choose to play them as
part of the programming. The commerical radio stations here are locked
in a format and DJs are given lists of what to play and how many times.
Other thing that comes to mind is the amount of money they are given.
NPR is huge money we all know that. Does it really hurt to throw a few
dollars at a small station that may offer somewhat of a different
choice?

-Bob

What I don't understand is this rant about public stations, the LPFM
stations around here are community based stations.

NPR and the larger state-wide Public Networks are building empires, with
affiliates to cover every sq. in of America so that NPR can extend its
dominance.
NPR is not evil, but the long range plan of both commercial broadcasters and
NPR-types is to control audiences. If advertising is allowed on public
stations, then their "reach" will be used to deliver audiences to the
advertiser. and if the public stations are dependent on advertising to cover
operating funds, guess who's in the drivers seat?
The NPR/Big Public network people are blocking LPFM and other local stations,
so they can extend their reach.
The whole "localism" debate isn't just about commercial broadcasters like Clear
Channel and Infinity. NPR actually fits between those two in size and
influence.

Radioman390 wrote:

What I don't understand is this rant about public stations, the LPFM
stations around here are community based stations.


NPR and the larger state-wide Public Networks are building empires, with
affiliates to cover every sq. in of America so that NPR can extend its
dominance.
NPR is not evil, but the long range plan of both commercial broadcasters and
NPR-types is to control audiences. If advertising is allowed on public
stations, then their "reach" will be used to deliver audiences to the
advertiser. and if the public stations are dependent on advertising to cover
operating funds, guess who's in the drivers seat?
The NPR/Big Public network people are blocking LPFM and other local stations,
so they can extend their reach.
The whole "localism" debate isn't just about commercial broadcasters like Clear
Channel and Infinity. NPR actually fits between those two in size and
influence.


Where I am, I don't think it would possible w/o putting a filter on my
antenna to find a sqaure inch of land where you can't pickup the NPR.
Here I can pickup two stations, at school I can pick up 3. Honestly, I
think thats the problem. Having one station in every market carrying NPR
doesn't bug me personally.
I also know NPR is trying to block LPFM claiming it causes interference
with their broadcasts. Clearly they aren't winning, the fcc knows better.

-Bob

Radioman390 wrote:
A DJ playing a stack of CDs is NOT educational radio.

OTOH, the only way a Chicagoan can hear much jazz is the educational
station at College of DuPage, WDCB.

--
If Kerry can't cope with the "Republican Attack Machine",
how can he hope to deal with Al Qaeda?

I will post the counter poise to this topic.

I attended many schools thoughtout my life and I have had the pleasure to enjoy all type of radio.

Getting to play around with a transmitter of more then 1500 watts is just one benefit of working at a AM / FM radio station.
I'm not saying that I was paid or that I was physically employed at any of the stations that I had visited - but I know people who have gone on to become great radio announcers - because of their experience while in College.

There is pluses and minuses to any type of job or any type of radio license.
WDQU? Duquense University - Pittsburgh PA - was mainly centered around the black community - I think I am allowed to say BLACK in this for instance, because that was what it was.

Pittsburgh was a steel town and the steel was made off the backs of hard working individuals - some of whom were colored.
People work with the promise that if they work hard and save their money they can some day send their children to school - so they will not have to struggle the way the parents and grandparents did.

Duquense University was one place where the colored person was not turned away - reguardless of their academic achievements.

The main music format of their radio station was JAZZ.
Now mind you - I am not into JAZZ , nor is any of my White Angelo Saxton Protestant friends, but there is people who might like listening to it.

In a world where you are not allowed to segregate people anymore - it seems that it is ok if colored people does something for the benefit of other colored people - but don't you dare use it for yourself if you are white!

When the state ran out of money and had to cut back funding for the Universities across Pennsylvania - WQED - which is probably one of the oldest Universities to sponsor a PBS station - you can read the bio of WDTV and KDKA to understand what I am talking about - went into panic mode and started non stop pledge drives. They cut back almost to the bone all public local programming - which included laying off Dave of the Dave and Dave Show.

They got rid of the most expensive programming - which included THE NEW RED GREEN SHOW! ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR TELEVISION SHOWS - NOT BRITISH COMEDY'S ON PBS TELEVISION.

At the same time WDQU sold off it's FM / AM radio station entirely.
Legally I don't know how they can do it.
WQED even has a home shopping network television station on one of their sub channels - or they did at one time, and another PBS station affiliated with WQED went off the air completely when the DTV transistion transpired.

None of these transactions is for the benefit of the students, all we are teaching these children is how to make money and how to save money.

On the other hand, there is a station in Clarion PA - part of the Clarion University of Pennsylvania WCUC = which back in the 1980's would let students on the air, allowing them to play music and produce programs for the general public and for the entertainment of the local college community.

I can attest to the fact that their weak little station was being monitored at night as far away as Indiana PA, because we were putting up antenna's so we could listen to their broadcasts.

There were DJ's on there that were playing Heavy Metal Music when Heavy Metal Music was not a top 40 type format.
The people playing that music would have never been able to ever play what they wanted when they graduated and got a job in broadcasting.
Hence - although it was a white school - not a lot of colored people wants to go to mid western Pennsylvania where it is cold in the winter, lot's of snow and not a lot of other colored people around.

You say there is no benefit to them spinning records and I say there is.

You don't seem to understand how broadcasting works.
In the real world, AM and FM radio is not free!
You give up a portion of your life in exchange for getting to listen for free to music, news , weather and what interests you.
The station pours cubic dollars of money into electricity, salaries, rent / taxes / maintenence and upkeep, insurance etc - just so you can listen to your couple of minutes a hour of commercials.

The sponsors of the show - which WDTV ( Dumont) was the innovator of what we know as commercial television today.
Before the 1950's - when he came out with his model of television, each program was sponsored by just one or two sponsors.
Each sponsor determined what the programming was going to be and if you didn't do it the way they told you to do it - they pulled their sponsorship dollars out and you were left looking for a new sponsor for the show or the show was cancelled.

One of the points of commercial radio is that you have to have people pounding the keyboard, the telephone, the pavement - looking for new sponsors - advertisers so you can keep the lights on.
IN this day and age, where there is more ways of telling a person NO - it is pretty hard to even find a young energetic person that is willing to try to make a living in sales.

I say - let the kids have their fun, they have the rest of their lives to be adults in a adult world of Dog Eat Dog.
If there is 24 hours in the day and their license allowes them to broadcast 18 hours a day, let them broadcast - taking their turns being a big time DJ in a small town. Most times there is no one listening to them anyways.

A LP radio station might only have a radius of about 10 miles for their ERP anyways.

This is how they gain experience and this is how they develope their on air skills and this is how they make their demo's that they can use later in life to get mininum wage jobs in the real world of broadcasting.

We aren't all Johnboy's and Billy's and we are not all Jeff Christie either.

Now you ask - who the heck is Jeff Christie?
Look it up - http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/christie.html