Move-Ins Hurt Gaining Communities, Too

When a new FM radio station pops up in an urban area, everyone in the area benefits, don't they? Not necessarily! There are several reasons why a new urban "programming choice" may not bring much net benefit -- at least not to anyone other than the licensee, whose station's value increases many times over. Here are three ways move-ins can decrease programming diversity and public service in their new urban home.

• Knock innovative, non-commercial, locally-based Low-Power FM stations off the air or diminish their coverage.
• Shut down or reduce coverage of FM translators that extend the reach of distant stations with a local audience.
• Reduce urban radio diversity by increasing station ownership consolidation and increasing competitive pressures on independent stations that still originate locally-produced programing "the old-fashioned way."

If you want to understand these impacts, read on ...

Hoping to reverse trends toward broadcast consolidation and uniformity, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has introduced the Low-Power FM (LPFM) service. LPFM allows local communities, schools, clubs, ethnic groups, etc., a way to provide truly local, non-commercial programming for their community. But LPFM is a "secondary service:" it exists only as long as it doesn't get in the way of a full-power station. LPFM stations usually occupy little gaps in the urban FM band created by FCC frequency spacing rules that protect outlying FM stations 30-150 miles away. When one of those stations moves into the urban area, it either puts the LPFM stations off the air or greatly reduces their coverage.

In many areas, FM translators are low-power transmitters that extend the reach of distant FM stations. Translators typically provide specialty programming not otherwise be available in the area. It may be a public radio station with an unusual talk or music line-up. It might be a religious broadcaster that serves a devoted but widely dispersed community of believers. Or it might even be a commercial station whose signal is lost in the radio "shadow" created by mountains or skyscrapers. Like LPFM, translators are a secondary service. Like LPFM, they disappear or are diminished when their little niche in the urban FM band is filled up by a full-power FM move-in.

But a newly moved-in station serves its whole urban area – shouldn't that benefit more people? If it provided distinctive programming that genuinely caters to local tastes, interests, and issues, that would be true. But the typical FM move-in is just one more media channel added to a corporate broadcaster's urban radio "cluster." Programming on such clusters is often provided remotely and contains little if any local content. From the corporate broadcaster's viewpoint, the move-in just adds another demographic they can deliver to their advertisers ... and it increases competitive pressure on any locally-owned and -operated stations that may still remain in the urban market.

Not every move-in harms its new market all three ways, but many cause at least one of these harmful effects.