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FCC Move Could Shut Down High School Radio Station
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "This probably has been happening all along, maybe just not in my area. A broadcasting company bought an FM radio station in The Dalles, Oregon (a little hick town east of Portland), and wants to move it to a much choicer market in Seattle, Washington. The FCC has given the green light for the move. Problem is, the frequency in Seattle is being used by a station owned by a local high school, Mercer Island High School. The school has appealed, saying the decision ignores the FCC's own rules, and questioned the FCC's assertion that there's space available elsewhere on the Seattle-area radio dial. The school says the proposal is 'little more than an effort to migrate from a rural community to an extremely well-served urban area.' Critics of the proposal contend that the move is an attempt to tap the much larger Seattle radio advertising market."
"...and questioned the FCC's assertion that there's space available elsewhere on the Seattle-area radio dial"
If there's space elsewhere on the radio dial, why doesn't the other station take it?
Class D stations are hanging on by a grandfather clause at this point. The FCC is handing out no more new Class D allocations, and all Class D stations have been demoted in status such that if any higher-class stations (which include all commercial stations, since Class D's are by definition non-commercial) gets an allocation that interferes with them, the Class D must cease operations.
In short, Class D is in a phase-out period... stations in the Class D status need to get themselves moved into the dedicated educational slice of the FM band from 88.1 to 91.9, or convert their license to being LPFM station (possibly with lower power than they had before) in order to regain primary status so that nobody else can stomp on their turf.
This poor high school hasn't acted, and now the bulldozer of several stations re-aligining themselves on "their frequency" is coming in to knock them down. Sure, changing frequencies or converting to LPFM isn't a free thing to do, but it was part of their obligations as a broadcaster to keep up with the changes in the FM band. They did nothing, and if they can't afford to get themselves onto a safe channel then that's there problem. They clearly had a chance to do so when LPFM came out, and they passed...
A college radio station was pre-empted because a major new york radio station wanted the frequency. The college refused to move and put up a fight against the FCC, which fined them for various "other" violations.
The taxpayers ended up flipping the bill because of the greedy commercial radio station and the hard nosed college administrators. The FCC is a bunch of corrupt people buyable by whoever has the most money. it just goes to show that the US government is corrupt.
You mean to tell me an agency of the United States government is putting corporate interests before the public's interests?
I never thought I'd live to see the day!
The FCC and most federal agencies work on the opinion that the largest income intake from licensing and taxation is the best way to serve the public. Sadly this only benifits the largest markets eliminates any minority services and ends with a homoginized beaurocracy controled competetive monopoly market.
I live in Seattle and I have heard this high school radio station. It's complete and utter crap in my opinion. They play all the heavily commercialized rap and R&B songs. We have two great radio stations in Seattle that pay little attention to commercialization of music:
103.7 The Mountain plays all sorts of music, not just the singles everyone else plays. Furthermore, they don't overplay songs and they aren't afraid to take risks (They played artists like Jack Johnson before anyone else caught on).
90.3 KEXP plays almost any kind of music that has not been commercialized by the RIAA. Sometimes they play things that are a little too weird for me, but sometimes I hear a GREAT song and look it up online (they log all their playlists since you won't recognize their music from TRL).
I doubt the radio station that is trying to displace the hich school station is as good as the two I have mentioned, but seriously, the high school station is not good at all. Also of note, Mercer Island, where the high school is, is where Washington State's most privileged families live. Mercer Island is where a 16 year old girl drover her new Audi A6 drunk and killed a child. (Not to generalize.....)
...might do some good! :P
"...KMCQ's {the nasty corporate commercial station} Web site says the station plays adult contemporary music and uses local announcers. KMIH (The 'hi skool', yo} plays hip-hop and R&B."
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The Dalles is 250 miles from Seattle and isn't a suburb of anything. It's 85 miles from Portland.
We'll take care of their site with a thorough slashdotting :-)
Have you hugged your penguin today?
It would be bad if my rights were somehow jeopardized by some high-school vs. commercial radio station dispute in distant Washington state. Bad indeed.
Don't you get it?
The point is that the FCC is letting large corporations control the airwaves to the detriment of the public (i.e schools). They are prioritising the big and wealthy over the little guy. It doesn't affect your rights online, but holy fuck does it affect your rights.
Put it this way: say that a large corporation wanted your domain name, which coincides with the name for one of their new products. Also say that your web host willingly handed the domain over to them, without giving you a say in the matter. You'd be crying "OMGWTF THE HOSTS TOOK AWAY MY NAME AND GAVE IT TO PROCTER AND GAMBLE!!!111". I think you'd have a right to be pissed then. Same thing here.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Here is San Diego, we're lucky that Clear Channel can own stations in San Diego, and in Tijuana, Mexico (right across the border). We thus get double the Clear Channel, and yes, our radio sucks more than most cities.
This isn't necessarily true. There are still a number of small owners in very small markets that make a decent business out of serving the community. Granted, you're going to hear high school sports, and "trade-e-o", and community bulletin board and all that folksy stuff, but isn't that what serving the community of license is all about?
Your comments that small communities had stations all to themselves isn't on point either. None of the reallocations I've been involved with had nothing to do with the smaller community not requiring the services of the station and everything to do with the new big owner (Cumulus, Clear Channel et al) wanting to push it into the market and require advertisers to buy multiple advertising packages on all stations.
Let me tell you, you'll never hear high school sports scores or community bulletin board on a Cumulus station. You'll hear rap music being piped to farmers, but nothing of community interest.
Furman University in Greenville, SC was without a radio station for about a year and a half because Clear Channel bought a station and boosted its power enough to knock us out. What's annoying is that an exec for Clear Channel is on the board of trustees for Furman. Talk about right hand not knowing what the left is doing... They promised us new equipment to make up for it, but that never materialized. Meanwhile, we were stuck without our beloved WPLS for a significant amount of time....
I used to listen to X104 a couple of years ago (actually, when I was in High School). It used to play really interesting music, such as independent techno and dance music.
I tuned in recently, and I all I could hear was the same generic commerical Rap/"R&B" that every other ass clown radio station in Seattle plays.
If anyone is interested, there is another HS radio station called C89fm, run by Seattle Public Schools. It plays content similar to what x104 used to play and even has a webcast so I can listen at work.
Its a great break from the average commerical crap radio in Seattle.
It's really regrettable, in the sense that the Mariposa, CA area had NO rock radio station in the area. The closest station was in Fresno, and didn't get reception well, if at all, in the area.
The station itself had a range of approximately 3 miles in any direction, which was enough for the town of about 2000 to be entertained. The only thing that was even close on the frequency was a spanish station, whose reception was incredibly poor in the radius of 20 miles from the town. Considering up there is a mostly white demographic (like 95%), I can't imagine any objection.
The thing is, creating a radio station, thanks to the FCC and government, forces the act into a business. This was something that my friend ran out of his house. He received no donations, just overwhelming community support, especially from the 700 or so high school students that had nothing to listen to on the air.
The crap part, is since that it's such a small town, there's no amount of advertising that would make up for the FCC fees alone. Therefore, Mariposa, CA is stuck with a country music station.
This story is just another one that ends up frustrating me in the end. Thank you, FCC. You properly ended up making free speech available and accessible to the upper class.
*** END RANT ***
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I've seen this sort of thing happen several times in my local area. A big conglomerate buys a small station outside a major market for big bucks, and immediately applies to move the station to a more profitable location inside the major market. They never had any intentions of continuing to serve the community that the license was originally issued for. They just see an opportunity to gain an outlet in the major market.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
>Seriously, there's nothing else to be said after this post.
Oh please. The post does not go into why the Class D change happened, who is serves, why community radio is being killed in favor of commercial radio, etc.
Last I checked, the people owned the airwaves and the little slice they had for colleges and highschools is being systematically being pull-out in favor of more clear channel crap.
Secondly, if you read the article you'll see the FCC asked them to move to 104.something. If the FCC didn't ask them to move, they wouldn't be having this problem.
LPFM is largely a joke and its too late to get licenses now. A LPFM station covers a few blocks at best, especially if there are any tall buildings.
As far as the "keeping up with the changes" comment goes, well its important to ask why and understand such changes. What if your city aldermen or state legislature decided the land you live on is too close to the freeway and the Walmart people should have it? Would you and the grandparent be quick to defend a change of law without asking the ethical questions involved? Or is it "that's the law, shut up" all the way?
FCC is not above criticism, especially when its run by Michael Powell and the GOP.
If the station received its license on the basis of its promise to serve Fooville, why should it be allowed to move to a nearby major market?
Because they can claim that Fooville is already recieving a "primary local service" from several other radio stations, so even though they were the closest station to Fooville and got their allocation in the early days by promising to serve Fooville, Fooville doesn't really need them anymore. Therefore, they want to move to Barville and provide a new "primary local serice" to them since they seem so underserved.
The fact that the real motivation is that a new setup in Barville will give them a whole lot better signal in Capitol City, which is where they've really been trying to aim themselves at all along, is something that they can easily leave out of the FCC applications.
The fact is, "primary local service" is a joke these days, and have been that way for a long long time. The laws of market economics have basically taken over. If there's an ad market to support a community than the market exists, otherwise it gets folded into the nearest market that is large enough to qualify.
Afterall, ad sales is really what local service is all about in broadcasting these days. Community calendars are being left to the local newspaper, which more and more is now just some localized inserts into an otherwise regional newspaper. (In some cases, it's one title with a regional section... in other cases it's 5 co-owned papers with different titles that have their own front page, but share any story that applies to the whole area or is purely a "feature" story.)
If the local radio market really was that viable... than MegaCorp wouldn't be able to justify coming up with enough money to get the local owner to part with his station.
First they want to move the station in question a full state, from Oregon north several hundred miles to Seattle. I could possibly see moving it to Portland, but this is a real streach.
Next, if the high schoolers really want to fight, all they have to do is to talk to their parents. Mercer Island, is located in the middle of Lake Washington and the residents are VERY well off. Paul Allen lives on the island as do a lot of the Microsoft millionairs. Bill Gates lives just north of the island. Quite a few Boeing executives in addition to at least one Senator for Washington (if I remember correctly). If they want, they (the school) have the connections to steam roll the station and make an example of them. Given that its the end of the shcool year with exams, now is the perfect time for this move on the station's part in the student body is out for the summer.
Housing prices start around a million for a modest home....
As is the usual case, this would all be a moot argument if the whole world would set aside what it thinks it knows and let ME make all the important decisions.
:)
My declaration to remove all the current problems with so-called "interference" (listen up HAMs, you guys complain the most about "interference", at least on Slashdot): Software defined digital radio
Seriously though, one of the issues that has been brought up with a software radio is that "interference" isn't what it's portrayed to be. Radio waves don't collide with one another, the way that "intereference" implies. Interference is actually an artifact of the low quality analog recievers we use to listen to radio. Their selectivity leaves a whole heckuva lot to be desired. A radio with greater selectivity (the ability to distinguish two radio boadcasts with similar carrier frequencies, even those coming form the same source) can eliminate this dated notion of interference.
Read This Salon article on the subject and be converted to the new way of thinking about "interference". Or not
P.S. This article was the subject of a previous Slashdot article.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
They are. As I understand it (and I am no expert) it is because when you broadcast at lower frequencies, the signals require less power to reach a greater area, and many of these stations broadcast at 1-10 watts, rather than 5000-10000.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals."
The point is that the FCC is letting large corporations control the airwaves to the detriment of the public (i.e schools).
Apparently a good deal of public values what the corporations provide. Maybe you don't value it, but many people do.
If people really valued this radio station so much, where is the money? I've found it's easy for people to claim such and such is the greatest thing, but when they are asked to pay for it, suddenly it's less important.
The fact is most of the public likes what you and I would consider crap and that means most of the resources are going to go to providing them with their crap.
That doesn't mean what the public wants is somehow objectively worse than what we want. We have different values. But, should we given resources, airwaves and otherwise, disproportionately?
They are prioritising the big and wealthy over the little guy. It doesn't affect your rights online, but holy fuck does it affect your rights
The problem is that "the little guy" mostly doesn't give the public the crap it wants and the wealthy do.
If you want to be one of those wealthy people, you need to provide people with the crap they want, like Beanie Babies, or Public Storage, or fatty Hamburgers, or Britney Spears' T&A, or shiney Chrome rims for SUV's.
The fact is that the animals mostly make the world go round and stations like ClearChannel are giving them what they want. Shouting "NO!" isn't going to change that.
I live in Seattle and do listen to the hishschool station. KUBE 93.3 is the biggest hip-hop and R&B station in the Greater Seattle area. They cater to the Top 40 format so on any given day you will here the same eight songs every hour. 104.5 plays more of the underground and non-mainstream (read: GOOD) hip-hop. You barely every here commercials and hear alot of older stuff that never made in big with commercial success. It is really sad if they do bring down that station. I guess big business is where it's at.
the little slice they had for colleges and highschools is being systematically being pull-out in favor of more clear channel crap.
You are correct, there is a little slice set aside for colleges, high schools, religious broadcasters, and other non-commercial interests. It's 88.1 through 91.9.
Now I'd like you to point out even ONE case where Clear Channel kicked someone out of this band. Clear Channel is not able to own a station in the non-commercial band. It's been about five years since I worked in radio, but I think I'd notice if suddenly commercial entites were allowed to have non-commerical radio stations "systematically being pull-out" (whatever that means).
Moreover, can you document that Clear Channel/Viacom/CBS/Whatever Megalomedia is "systematically" pushing non-commercial stations off the air, or are you just making things up as you go along?
Furthermore, how is LPFM a joke? There are dozens of LPFM stations out there working very hard to serve thier communities, and doing a fine job of it. This high school's little Class-D signal wasn't much different than a legitimate LPFM that you consider a joke. The kids have the station to learn. They don't need 100,000 watts to learn how to bulk erase a cart.
And it's a lie to say that it's too late to get LPFM licenses now. Dozens were awarded within the last month or so. In fact, just last week WKHV-LP/Kingston and WXLJ-LP/Harwich applied for licenses to cover (if you don't know what that means, you shouldn't be posting in this Slashdot conversation). Two weeks earlier, WJSK-LP/Bartlett was granted its license to cover.
Again, anything to back up your claims, or are you spewing rectally again?
World's tallest building rises in the desert