In my old home state of New Jersey, the state broadcasters association is making efforts to knock back licensed LPFM, translators and pirates in the state.
Today, Inside Radio reports that the Telecommunications Committee of the New Jersey Assembly has unanimously passed out a bill that would make unlicensed broadcasting a state offense, similar to the bill passed in Florida earlier this year.
Back in May the NJBA filed a petition (download PDF) with the FCC asking for a rulemaking banning any stations under 100 watts in the state, either 10 watt LPFM (which have not yet been opened up for licensing) or translator stations. The petition also asks the FCC to expand the protected broadcast radius of commercial FM stations with regard to 100 watt LPFM stations and translators. The FCC placed that petition on public notice on Oct. 8 with a Nov. 8 comment deadline.
As of today only seven comments have been filed, with three opposing and four in support. Of those four in support, two appear to have been filed through the NJBA’s automated comment form.
Although I think picking on LPFM stations and chasing pirates is like using a band-aid to heal an amputated leg, I do have some sympathy for the situation that New Jersey radio stations are in.
With the huge New York City and Philadephia radio markets dominating much of the state, the local and, especially, locally-owned broadcasters are getting squeezed, both economically, due to ad rate competition, and due to being forced into having relatively low power and coverage areas.
When I lived in New Jersey, up through 1993, one of my favorite stations was a locally owned commercial station, WDHA in Dover, NJ.
The station plays a basic AOR format, but distinguishes itself from most stations of that format — including ones in NYC — by playing a lot of New Jersey artists and tailoring programming to the greater North Jersey area, like having a weekly locally-produced metal show.
It’s still a commercial station, and so isn’t as free-form or experimental as a good college or community station. But for commercial radio, it’s very good, and I can see how WDHA could have a hard time facing much more well-financed and powerful stations out of NYC.
But the real problem is those stations in NYC and Philly, and the fact that the FCC’s original station allocation method was intended to have New Jersey stations serve their local communities, not the metroplex.
It’s the FCC’s fault that the agency has allowed the principle of localism to all but evaporate, creating the “rim-shot” phenomenon, where stations originally licensed to serve small communities on the fringes of larger cities drop any pretense of serving their cities of license. You’ve probably heard these stations without even realizing it. The only hint that these stations aren’t licensed to the bigger city is in their station IDs, where they’re required to list the city of license first.
In that case you’ll hear something like “WGKC, Mahomet, Champaign-Urbana.” That’s an example of a station here that is licensed to the much smaller town of Mahoment, IL, ten miles West of Champaign-Urbana, but that aims its programming at the larger Champaign-Urbana cities.
Rimshots are typically employed by large radio owners like Infinity/Viacom and Clear Channel, because they can gather them into a cluster of stations in and around a major market. By contrast,small local owners are more likely to keep their stations locally oriented, and it’s those smaller local and regional station operators in New Jersey that are so threatened by the big NYC and Philly behemoths.
I’m actually surprised that there are any local owners left in New Jersey. I haven’t fully researched ownership in that area, but my guess is that the biggest radio conglomerates are probably already at their limits for the various markets in that area, and so the local companies are currently protected from takeover. But that doesn’t make them protected from predatory ad pricing and being beat out in the ratings.
Unfortunately, the chances of the NJBA getting change in the 1996 Telecomm Act or getting the FCC to re-enforce localism rules isn’t particularly likely. But picking on the smallest of the radio players, isn’t going to win them much either. Especially since the LPFM broadcasters would probably otherwise be willing allies in defending true local broadcasting for New Jersey’s communities.