MAP to FCC: How to Get On More LPFMs

The Media Access Project, which works with potential LPFM applicants, had suggestions for the FCC to get more LPFMs on the air as part of the agency’s new media localism push. The MAP says some applicants have waited three years for their paperwork to be processed. Suggestions included: Reevaluate FM translator policies to eliminate noncommercial translators that do not originate locally broadcast programming. “These satellite-fed translators chains are the anti-thesis of localism and are harming both noncommercial radio and low power noncommercial radio,” states MAP.
MAP suggests the FCC evaluate IBOC and adopt policies that will promote the carriage of LPFM stations to be transmitted among digital radio bit streams and alter EAS obligations so that they are easier for LPFM stations to comply with. “The less-expensive equipment that the FCC anticipated would appear has not materialized,” states MAP.