2023 Grassroots Radio Conference - October 19~22 - Charleston, WV

[Damon]

Check this out!!
www.2023grassrootsradioconference.com

 

[Michi]

mod: edited title of thread. Mod also endorses attendance at this conference. Check it out.

 

[Red Plume]

This sounds really cool, Amy Goodman is an amazing journalist. Would love to see her, she's one of my heroes. What an excellent headliner!

Mod edit: There is no need to leak the discussion of corporation statuses to other threads. This bashing will stop now.

 

[Red Plume]

Please review your definition of 'bashing'. Regardless of whether content belongs on a thread, applying the 'bashing' label to polite but critical communication is both incorrect and offensive.

 

[Kelly A]

Please review your definition of 'bashing'. Regardless of whether content belongs on a thread, applying the 'bashing' label to polite but critical communication is both incorrect and offensive.

Exactly, goes to implicit bias on the part of the moderator.

 

[Michi]

The bottom line is this, you are questioning the credibility of someone because the organization that they are associated with may have missed an annual report with the state. Assuming that they have any control over what the parent organization of the LPFM licensee does. That is a wrong assumption. Keep in mind, I am in that same class of GRC presenters. Not everyone who is presenting at the GRC is presenting on station legal, regulatory or administrative operations. There's only a few of us who are tacking those specific subjects. One of those people may even be an FCC staffer. If someone is giving a presentation at the GRC, on, let's say studio building, programming, radio automation, etc., it is irrelevant to whether their parent organization has missed an annual report. I think the comments along the lines of "this person should not be trusted because they are associated with an LPFM with a lapsed corporate status" is not necessary and uncalled for in this thread. We have already beaten that dead horse in a different thread. There's no need to have it leak over into other threads.

 

[davideduardo]

If someone is giving a presentation at the GRC, on, let's say studio building, programming, radio automation, etc., it is irrelevant to whether their parent organization has missed an annual report. I think the comments along the lines of "this person should not be trusted because they are associated with an LPFM with a lapsed corporate status" is not necessary and uncalled for in this thread. We have already beaten that dead horse in a different thread. There's no need to have it leak over into other threads.

I'll add that LPFMs are almost entirely volunteer-staffed. Some are one-person operations, assisted by computer scheduling and playback capabilities.

The idea of LPFM was to give community groups and individuals an opportunity to have a voice. That statement means that a lot of disenfranchised people got stations; often the rules and regulations of both having an FCC license and a non-profit entity were all new, confusing and mystifying. The whole idea was to give smaller voices a station... and "small" usually means that getting every dollar is hard work. These are not groups that can spend a lot on legal and regulation advisers and counsel... so there will be errors.

As a commercial broadcaster at heart, I find some of the GRC presenters to be a bit strident in their views and opinions of the for-profit sector, but I was also disturbed and offended decades ago by Lorenzo Milam and even the antagonism of the United Church of Christ. So we have to look at the perspective and purpose of LPFMs before being so critical.

 

[Red Plume]

I have to side with the small broadcaster, who used their limited budget (or their personal funds) to attend a conference for solid advice.

But I understand that viewpoint is not welcome here, and a moderator has every right to delete that viewpoint, since this is a private web site.

The only thing I can hope for is that people are more careful with their words.

 

[Greg Goodfellow]

I shared the info about the conference with our station manager. We just might be making a road trip!

 

[Michi]

The idea of LPFM was to give community groups and individuals an opportunity to have a voice. That statement means that a lot of disenfranchised people got stations; often the rules and regulations of both having an FCC license and a non-profit entity were all new, confusing and mystifying.

Exactly, there's a huge learning curve for LPFMers. Unfortunately, the FCC does not give LPFM licensees an "owners manual". This is where REC steps up.

The whole idea was to give smaller voices a station... and "small" usually means that getting every dollar is hard work. These are not groups that can spend a lot on legal and regulation advisers and counsel... so there will be errors.

There will be, but those who reach out to the LPFM community will get help. Many LPFMers are not doing this.

As a commercial broadcaster at heart, I find some of the GRC presenters to be a bit strident in their views and opinions of the for-profit sector, but I was also disturbed and offended decades ago by Lorenzo Milam and even the antagonism of the United Church of Christ. So we have to look at the perspective and purpose of LPFMs before being so critical.

The grassroots radio movement predates the creation of LPFM. Obviously, there has been a lot of discontent towards commercial radio since the Telecom Act. The Telecom Act led to the uptick in pirates in the late 90s and would eventually turn into the creation of LPFM. I work with many commercial broadcasters of all shapes and sizes and while all we hear about is iHeart, Audacy and EMF (noncommercial), there are still quite a few mom and pops and small regional owners and they are supported here.

 

[Mikey Radio]

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but at the same time to @Red Plume and @Kelly A's point, I also don't agree with moderator(s) changing or threatening to delete a post because it doesn't fit with their particular point of view or the direction they personally believe a discussion thread should take. While I'd seen Frank and David remove posts that wandered quite far off the stated subject of or were defaming or attacking someone personally, and I've seen David "red pen" an occasional post here and there to warn someone, I've seen at least one newer moderator of this site threaten to edit or alter a post when they personally didn't agree with the comment. or when it was taking a thread in a direction they personally didn't want it to go in. My opinion only, but I don't think that type of censorship is befitting a true "radio discussions" site. It kind of inhibits the "discussions" part of that title.

 

[Red Plume]

...threaten to edit or alter a post when they personally didn't agree with the comment. or when it was taking a thread in a direction they personally didn't want it to go in...

I've been on message boards for decades, and the first time I've ever been threatened to be squelched was a few weeks ago, and the first mod edit/post removal was this thread. And I've been called a basher twice by a moderator, which never happened before, since I don't think I've ever verbally assaulted anyone in my life.

Most message boards have you stick by rules, which I was unaware of violating on this site.

The bashing comment is particularly hurtful due to circumstances in my life (that are outside of the scope of this conversation).

 

[fybush]

I'm not a moderator here, so this is just personal observation, and please don't take it as anything more than that.

Many of the regulars on this board, myself included, are advocates and supporters of community radio. I have spent a lot of time over the last few decades helping community broadcasters navigate the complex seas of FCC regulations to get on the air and stay on the air, and I'm excited to be working with more would-be broadcasters to get them LPFM licenses in this year's window.

The process is not always an easy one, whether it's the initial licensing and construction or all the complicated pieces of ongoing compliance (EAS NPT reporting! Renewals! Music licensing! Underwriting rules!)

The FCC knows that, and in my experience has given a lot of leeway to LPFM operators who are trying to do the right thing and run their stations correctly.

Again, just my opinion - but it felt like you came in here very hot, looking to create lists of stations with compliance issues and call them out publicly. That's your right, of course, but it's not the way most of us here operate. I would much rather work behind the scenes with a station and the FCC to bring them back into compliance if needed. In my decades of experience, there's usually nothing to be gained by calling a station out publicly if its operators are trying to be compliant and might just need a little help to get it right.

What you might not know is that there are a handful of what I'll call "FCC complaint trolls" who seem to have nothing better to do than to file petitions against LPFM and translator operators for perceived violations, even when it's on the other side of the country and nowhere near them. For a small operator, that can trigger the need to hire a communications lawyer and pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to file responses and try to retain their licenses. That can be a death sentence for the finances of a small station. I don't think any of those trolls lurk here, but I'd really prefer not to have to find out.

As for Grassroots, I had the pleasure of attending and presenting a few years ago when it was held here in Rochester and hosted by a consortium of our many LPFMs. Do I know what the legal incorporation status is of the entities that hold those licenses? For the most part, no. These were programmers and engineers and that's usually not their problem. Going after them for the legal status of the stations they represent felt off-base to me. That's not what the conference is about.

That said - no hard feelings. Keep hanging around and join the conversation here productively. It's a good space.

 

[Kelly A]

The process is not always an easy one, whether it's the initial licensing and construction or all the complicated pieces of ongoing compliance (EAS NPT reporting! Renewals! Music licensing! Underwriting rules!)

With all due respect Scott, you know as well as I that commercial and public broadcasters of full-class stations don't have their hands held unless they pay for it by lawyer. And LPFM's don't have nearly the requirements or paperwork, let alone apparently keeping up with the basic entity registration to remain as a licensee.
The poor LPFM broadcasters can't keep up with basic important paperwork? Boo-freaking-hoo.

The FCC knows that, and in my experience has given a lot of leeway to LPFM operators who are trying to do the right thing and run their stations correctly.

That, and I suspect they don't have the resources to audit what amount to 'auxillary services'.

Again, just my opinion - but it felt like you came in here very hot, looking to create lists of stations with compliance issues and call them out publicly. That's your right, of course, but it's not the way most of us here operate. I would much rather work behind the scenes with a station and the FCC to bring them back into compliance if needed. In my decades of experience, there's usually nothing to be gained by calling a station out publicly if its operators are trying to be compliant and might just need a little help to get it right.

Again, professional broadcasters don't have that option.
Michelle is going to get tweaked at me again, so that's the last I'll say in this particular thread.

 

[fybush]

The option of not being called out publicly? Sure they do.

One of the most powerful lessons I ever learned was back when I was still barely in my 20s and living in the suburbs of Boston. There was a nearby daytimer on 1550 that happened to leave its carrier on one night, which I noticed immediately because 1.55 MHz was also the carrier frequency for VHS Hi-Fi audio, and so my VCR was all noisy when it shouldn't have been.

I got hot under the collar about it and looked up the number for the FCC monitoring station in Maine, back when those were staffed.

The next day, I got the only angry call I ever received from Bob Bittner, who owned a competing station in town and had worked at the 1550 back in the day.

"Don't ever, EVER make that your first call. That's your very last resort. All you had to do was call me and I would have called Mr. D (the owner of the station) and had him fix the problem right away. Now you've created an FCC headache he didn't need."

That was easily 30 years ago now, but it remains a core principle for me: I'm not the FCC police. If something's wrong with one of my stations, I would much rather hear about it from a colleague in the market so I can get it fixed ASAP. And if that's the way I'd like to be treated, that's the way I'm going to treat others, too.

Obviously there are bad actors in the system who would take advantage of this. For the most part, we all know who they are, and I'm not going to reach out to offer help if I think they're deliberately trying to be noncompliant. In 30 years, I've filed just one petition to deny a renewal, and it was for an egregious case in my own market that actually had a direct effect on one of my clients. I didn't even feel great about that one, because it became clear later on that the licensee of the station was getting some very bad advice from their consultant, and with some better advice they might have been able to stay legal pretty easily.

We're not going to agree about LPFM, and that's fine. For all its flaws, I see a lot of value in the service and have found my local licensees to be an interesting addition to the dial here, in no small part because I've put in a fair amount of time (usually pro bono or at a very minimal fee) to help them understand the rules and stay legal. Maybe the LPFMs in Seattle or DC are different; I don't have the first-hand experience to say one way or another.

 

[Michi]

What you might not know is that there are a handful of what I'll call "FCC complaint trolls" who seem to have nothing better to do than to file petitions against LPFM and translator operators for perceived violations, even when it's on the other side of the country and nowhere near them. For a small operator, that can trigger the need to hire a communications lawyer and pay thousands upon thousands of dollars to file responses and try to retain their licenses. That can be a death sentence for the finances of a small station. I don't think any of those trolls lurk here, but I'd really prefer not to have to find out.

It depends on the reason/motivation for the objection. One of my main rules over here is "pick your battles".

REC has intervened in certain cases. In those cases, we are providing an independent observation of an issue where perhaps the FCC made an incorrect decision or something is being attempted that may be a rules violation that the FCC has historically did not notice in the past.

For example, during the 2021 LPFM window, REC intervened in a couple of tentative selectee decisions in MX Groups where the FCC erroneously made a determination based on incorrect information supplied by the applicant. Those cases were mainly centered around the counting of population in fair distribution and involved either missing stations (when counting number of educational services at a particular location) or counting water area as land area (which, in most cases, the applicant is using ComStudy 2 software and that software cannot properly distinguish land and water area like VSoft can). In the few cases we challenged, we were able to get a change in the tentative selectee, even though REC did not have any involvement with any other the applicants. If anything, we normally go into groups where there is no REC involvement because we see things from a national perspective and we are trying to prevent the FCC from going into a situation where they will regret it in the future if someone was to pull a Melody Music on a future situation ("if you did it for them, you must do it for us..").

In 2013, REC filed a 245 application informal objection against the applications that were filed by Antonio Cesar Guel and between that and the hard work that was done by the late Michael Couzens, it triggered a long running investigation at the FCC which resulted in the recent Hearing Designation Order and the eventual voluntary surrender of the LPTV licenses under contention and has Guel brightly on the FCC's radar as we get ready to go into the LPFM window.

A part of the issue has to do with the fact that applications need to be looked at on their face and when there is not enough information on the application, it has to be put under scrutiny. For example, there is someone in the Carolinas who has been routinely filing objections against translators where a modification would result in more than one translator placing a 60 dBu over at least 50% of an area and rebroadcasting the same primary station. The rules specifically require that if there is such overlap, then the applicant needs to explain why two translators covering the same area with the same primary station is justified. In some cases, it may be an oversight on the part of the applicant. In other situations, it may be because the translators are rebroadcasting different HD streams. Translator applicants can prevent this type of "complaint trolling" by simply including the required showings to justify the overlapping service areas. (It would be nicer if the FCC application allowed for the entry of HD stream information in the primary station designation of the application).

Actions that I do not agree with was the activity by a couple of major LPFM advocates a few years ago in the aftermath of AM Revitalization filing objections against any translator modification with a pulse (over 700+ objections were filed in this case). This was uncalled for. To this day, I am still being blamed for those filings even though I had zero involvement in them.

REC does file objections against other situations, especially along the line of LPFM assignment applications. These applications have very specific requirements and are often overlooked unless challenged. When reviewing assignment applications for LPFMs, we look for these things:

• Whether at the time of filing, there is a valid corporate entity. While we have heard a lot about corporate entities which have lapsed, these are cases where the proposed assignee has never been a corporation.
• The localism of applicants. LPFM has a strict localism rule in §73.853. We have intervened in cases where nonlocal applicants have been trying to obtain stations. The FCC staff does not do the measurements. They depend on self-certification. When an applicant falsely self-certifies, they can be called out.
• While it has not been as much a problem these days (but may pick up again after the Third Generation CPs are granted), we look at the asset purchase agreements and other documentation that involves consideration in an LPFM transaction. The FCC has specific rules regarding remuneration. If we see a $50,000 transaction in Florida for an LPFM, we will obviously take notice (I have seen attempts at 6-figure sales in Florida in the past). The rule changes that took place in MB Docket 19-3 actually raised the consideration amounts allowed (by using new value of equipment as opposed to depreciated fair market value).

If REC's past actions in proceeding involvement make us "complaint trolls", so be it. I try not to target anything with a pulse. If I intervene, I have a good reason to. This is all a part of a system of checks and balances and shows how in some cases, the FCC's reliance on self-certification and self-policing is failing. The FCC expects the industry to watch their own, and that's what we are doing. With that, REC has been more than transparent with the filings that we have made. You can view an entire history of REC filings in everything from rulemaking proceedings to broadcast application pleadings at:

REC FCC Filings | REC Networks

recnet.com

 

[fybush]

I definitely don't consider REC a "complaint troll." You correctly identified one of the parties that I actually was thinking of. There's another in suburban Chicago.

(edited to add)

As you well know, we come at things from somewhat different directions. REC has always had a history of advocacy, which is a great thing because we wouldn't have the LPFM rules we have now without all the work you've put in over the years. So it's entirely understandable and appropriate that you're going to act as a watchdog when you see attempts to do an end run around those rules or you think something needs FCC clarification.

That sort of advocacy role isn't part of what I do. While I don't hesitate to comment on rulemaking proposals, I otherwise tend to limit my dealings with the FCC to my own client applications and anything that might affect them.

They're both perfectly valid approaches, and as you know I never hesitate to use REC's services when the need arises, and would gladly recommend you!