LPONS Spot the Difference

[Keitha http://groups.google.com/group/ausytaliaradiobroadcastingmoderated]

Spot the Difference?

In the US AND nz lpon Low-power FM stations fill a public service
niche. As small, decidedly local stations, they are free to experiment
in ways well beyond what a commercial station would consider prudent,
and to program to ever-smaller subsets of local populations.

hERE industry groups have been opposed, some stridently so.

rw SAYS We suspected that once LPFMs began broadcasting, the worst of
the early doom-and-gloom predictions — “enormous interference,” lots
of short-spacing problems, “part-time people who want to turn their
[stations] on any time they feel like playing,” to quote comments
filed in 1998 — would be seen as overwrought.
So far we’ve been mostly right.

We’re glad LPFM now has garnered support from FCC chairmen past and
present on both sides of the political aisle.

The commission recently acted to fine-tune LPFM rules, essentially
tightening the assurances that LPFM would be “local” from both the
ownership and programming standpoints. It also reestablished an
earlier limit of one station per LPFM licensee.

It took these steps saying it hopes to foster and protect a service
that “creates opportunities for new voices on the airwaves and to
allow local groups, including schools, churches and other community-
based organizations, to provide programming responsive to local
community needs and interests.”

RW thinks these are excellent changes to preserve the independent,
local nature of the service.

The FCC also sought comment on changes that potentially could expand
LPFM licensing, including a possible recommendation that Congress
remove the requirement that LPFMs protect full-power stations
operating on third-adjacents. We concur in that, as we’ve written
before.

The commission also laid out possible further changes and asked for
comment; in doing so it raised numerous important questions.

Among them, the FCC tentatively has concluded that full-service
stations must provide technical and financial assistance to LPFMs when
implementation of a full-service station facility proposal would cause
interference to an LPFM station.

The idea behind this change surely is to make sure any subsequent
facility upgrade by one of the “big boys” won’t essentially squash an
LPFM. But while we support responsible expansion of LPFM, we hope the
FCC will proceed cautiously in this area. We remain leery of any rule
that could place an onus of unreasonable cost on existing
broadcasters.

We also anticipate there will be scenarios that could be difficult to
resolve; for instance, a full-power station may wish to expand to
produce service to many more people than the LPFM can serve but might
be precluded or discouraged with such a rule. Also, it will be
difficult to assess what to do in the event an LPFM claims
interference. The FCC may need to weigh the “greater good” benefit and
treat such situations case by case.

There is much more to digest in the FCC’s detailed report on LPFM,
which was published in mid-December as we went to press. We will watch
with interest and hope that any planned system of mitigating conflict
not place undue restrictions on full-service stations.

More broadly, should the industry be concerned about the apparent
elevation of LPFM to a primary — or at least better-than-secondary —
status?

The public notice certainly seems to indicate a more protective stance
by the FCC toward LPFMs against full-service stations. Will “LoPos”
soon be in a position to block full-service stations that want to add
a station or change a city of license? Full-service stations will not
be eager to hand over such bargaining power.

There is much to be discussed in the questions the FCC raises
(including its apparently heightened, and overdue, awareness of broad
problems with how it treats FM translator applications). We’ll be
writing more about that.

But looking at things broadly, what the commission seems to be doing
with LPFM is similar to what it did with LPTVs: started them as a
secondary service and, as the industry matured, created a subset
(Class A TV) which, because it met certain criteria, would be entitled
to at least some protection.

But there are important differences. LPFM is still a nascent service;
it’s not clear whether the FCC is going to impose additional
regulatory requirements on them that might justify the additional
protection; and the FM allotment system is still in a state of
development, as we have seen with the recent revision of process to
change city of license.

On the TV side there has not been much change in the basic channel
allocation scheme for a long time, and stations had pretty much become
static in facilities. By contrast, for years there has been FM re-
allotment activity that has entailed moving channels, transmitter
sites and so forth. That activity is likely to increase (or at least
not decrease) with the change-in-city-of-license process.

If such changes are now going to depend at least to some degree on
protecting LPFMs, we see potential for problems.

— RW

Spot the difference between narrowcasting in
the USA and NZ? Here the ACMA protects community and commercial
stations in a style like Soviet Russia. Its time for the acma to
remove these
restrictions on power and progrmming but also inrease the rentals
by ten times for those LPON operators who sit on their licences and
do not use them
..

keitha