full power series 1 non com licensing

Full-Power Series #1: Non-Com Licensing Window - Relevance and Rationale

This post is the first in a series about last October's full-power,

non-commercial licensing window opened by the FCC. Mike Janssen,

project manager for FMC's Full Power Initiative, will provide an

up-close look at several applicants, while examining what this process

could mean for listeners.

It's no wonder that old-school FM radio gets a bad rap among music

fans these days. Megacasters such as Clear Channel monopolize the

commercial stations, programming them with narrow playlists that offer

little musical variety. Meanwhile, some public stations are airing

more and more NPR-style programming, satisfying news junkies but

giving little refuge to lovers of tunes new and old. The radio

furnishes music aficionados with few chances to discover a happening

new band or a reinterpretation of a cherished sonata. No doubt this

helps explain the growing popularity of Internet radio, satellite

services and the iPod, which emulates eclectic radio whenever you

click "Shuffle."

Yet there's still hope for terrestrial radio. Last October, the

Federal Communications Commission accepted applications from nonprofit

organizations all over the country looking to start brand-spanking-new

noncommercial FM radio stations. Any nonprofit organization was

eligible to apply, and many were interested -- the FCC hadn't accepted

applications for new noncommercial stations since before 2000, so

there was plenty of pent-up demand.

During an intense 10 months, the Future of Music Coalition focused on

recruiting arts and cultural organizations around the country to

apply. FMC joined a coalition of hard-working, like-minded advocacy

groups to drum up interest under the banner of Radio for People. Our

partners in this coalition included Pacifica Radio, the Prometheus

Radio Project, Common Frequency, Free Press, the National Federation

of Community Broadcasters and Public Radio Capital.

The FCC accepted roughly 3,200 applications from October 12-22,

according to Public Radio Capital. Nearly 40 percent of those

applications came from community and public radio groups, according to

a statistical sampling analysis performed by PRC. The rest came from

religious groups, including those Christian broadcasters that already

operate large networks of stations all over the country and are eager

to acquire even more. Last fall, the FCC decided to accept a maximum

of just ten applications from each applicant; if the cap hadn't been

put in place, religious megacasters would have no doubt kept

submitting. (At least 49 groups whose name includes "Calvary Chapel"

filed during the window.)

Roughly 270 of October's applicants, secular and religious, are on an

accelerated ramp to FCC approval. But most of the hopeful broadcasters

won't know for at least a few years whether they'll be allowed to hit

the air. Why? Well, if the FCC were to grant all the applications it

receives, the result would be interference. The Commission therefore

has to figure out which proposed stations would disrupt one another

and mitigate this potential interference by granting permits only to

select applicants. (The 270 applicants on the fast track were lucky

enough to face no competition in their areas.)

The FCC settles disputes among these so-called mutually exclusive

applications by applying its "point system." The commission rolled out

the point system for the first time in March 2007 -- in fact, it was

the FCC's long struggle to develop this method that delayed its

processing of noncommercial applications for so many years.

Thankfully, the point system favors applicants who are located near

their proposed stations and who don't already operate stations in the

area, encouraging the qualities of localism and diversity in

broadcasting that FMC also supports. But doling out points and

resolving competing applications is time-consuming work, hence the

expectation that it will take years before the FCC awards the last of

the broadcast permits from this proceeding.

If you listen to FM radio -- and, given that it's free and almost

universally available, many of us still do -- the upshot of all this

is that you could, someday, have some new radio stations on your dial

to sample and, fingers crossed, get to know and love. Unfortunately,

you're less likely to notice any changes if you live in a big city. In

most major markets, the FM band is so crowded that, for current and

would-be broadcasters, squeezing a new station onto the dial is a pipe

dream. But small to medium-sized cities and rural communities still

hold opportunity for non-com broadcast hopefuls.

What will these newcomers contribute to our shared aural landscape?

Could your stagnant local lineup come alive with sounds of esoteric

musical genres? Fire-and-brimstone preachers? Earnest discussions of

area politics? All of the above?

The answers might be a ways off, but it's not too early to start

digging. In coming weeks this blog will profile some of the would-be

broadcasters whose applications are now trickling through the

mysterious inner workings of the FCC. We'll survey arts and cultural

groups, religious broadcasters mega and micro, and Native American

tribal groups. First up, we'll take a look at some applicants whose

names alone give us hope that radio could get a little more

interesting.

Mike Janssen served as Project Manager on FMC's Full Power Initiative,

recruiting arts and cultural groups to apply for stations and

assisting eventual applicants throughout the process. He is a

freelancer writer, editor and leader of media workshops in the

Washington, D.C., area. Visit his website at mikejanssen.net.