Tricks
Most FM move-ins are enabled by a bureaucratic mirage: according to FCC "channel allotment" policies, an urban bedroom suburb that's covered by a dozen or more big-city FM stations can have a stronger claim to an FM radio station than a medium-sized county seat 50 miles away with one local FM station. Here's how the FM move-in game is played by broadcast property speculators and the lawyers who help them.How First Local Service Preference Really Works
TricksIt's a rare move-in in which the community of license (the town that's gaining "local self-expression," remember?) is more than 10% of the station's covered audience. In about half of all move-ins, the community of license is less than 1% of the station's covered audience. How likely is it that such a station will pay special attention to that tiny fraction of its audience? There's surely no market pressure for them to do so, and since radio deregulation, there are no FCC rules that compel it either.
The new community of license gets only two sure benefits: a "city grade signal" (as it likely received from many other metro-area stations) and its name mentioned during station IDs at the top and bottom of the hour.
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