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92.9 LPFM's in Philly

A

atthestars

I noticed on Pirate Jim's Philly Radio History page (http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/piratejim/phillyfmhistory.html) a quadcast of LPFM's assigned to 92.9 in Philly. Interestingly, 3 of them (WGGT, WRLG, and WRGU) are expected to broadcast from one tower in Germantown, while one other (WJFN) is expected to broadcast from a tower in South Philly near Broad St.

It's a very interesting (And confusing) timeshare they have going on. Does anyone know if any of these stations are on the air yet? I haven't noticed anything while driving through areas that these stations would reach.
 
Usually any group of LPFM candidates that is MXed with another group or two are pretty battle weary by this point. When it becomes obvious more applicants than one want the same frequency and moving to a new frequency to eliminate the issue is not possible, all applicants usually test every other applicant's claims in the application. The FCC allows each applicant 'points' for meeting certain criteria. Applicants challenge every point taken to in an attempt to knock out the other applicants and win the frequency. Once this is resolved by the FCC, the FCC says to work out a time share agreement. Usually by then all the applicants have hurt feelings when they get to the negotiating table.

In some instances they work together just fine. In fact, some have worked together to the point of shared studios and transmitter location. In other instances they hate each other. Really oddball schedules are worked out and typically within a year or two one or more will decide this LPFM thing is not the direction they want to go any longer. I have seen schedules where one group takes two hours in the morning two on three weekdays and then something like 9pm Saturday night to 7am Sunday morning. Usually each group is very different than the other, so programming can change dramatically between LPFM stations (ie: Conservative Christian, Hip Hop and Liberal talk sharing a frequency).

I have no idea how any of these groups do in making their station self-supporting but I would suspect that never happens in most cases because of erratic schedules. One MXed group proposed an idea of a grant writer and underwriter sales position where these reps tried to gain dollars for all the stations sharing the frequency. I can see where problems could occur but felt it was a great idea.

It appears these groups might work together to pull this off. I hope so, I wish success to all and that any issues be resolved in solution based, level-headed tones where one might walk away feeling good about eliminating a problem with ease. It will be interesting to see.

It might take some time before everyone is on the air. The arrangement looks like this:
G-town Radio: 88 hours per week. Generally Noon Wednesday to 12 Midnight Saturday night except as below
Germantown United CDC: 10 hours per week. Noon to 3pm Sunday; 10am to 1pm Thursday; Midnight to 1am Friday and 10am to 1pm Friday
Germantown Life Enrichment Center: 10 hours per week. Midnight to 1 Thursday morning; 1 to 4pm Thursday & Friday and Noon to 3 Saturday
South Philadelphia Rainbow Committee: 60 hours per week. Generally Midnight Saturday night to Noon Wednesday except as above

It appears plenty of mud was slung prior to this point.
 
Looks like the South Philly set up is on top of Methodist Hospital and the three Germantown setups are on the old YMCA building, they will probably be some sort of minority operation...funny no one has shut down 105.7 yet..
 
Checking out the FCC data base, there are about four or five other permits for the Philadelphia market...94.9, 98.5, 106.5 and a few more...They will all be a waste, instead of Standards or Classic Oldies, they will be some useless format. The FCC has to allow for this, orders from the white house.
 
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It has always been this way. The White House has nothing to do with programming on radio stations much less dictate that they don't do standards or oldies. In my market a couple of LPFMs are doing oldies.
 
That's just my point; you have oldies, I checked the people receiving these LPFM's, we are going to get Asian, Hispanic, NAACP and some united rainbow minority thing, nothing music based, its going to be just a footstool for these people complaining about the country to keep spewing their intentions. My favorite station on the net is KFXM from Lancaster CA, a Low Power playing fantastic oldies, why not here in Philadelphia.

kfxm.gif
 
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I've listened to KFXM too. Great station. It looks like no group in your area wanted to do the format.

Don't let the programming statements from any LPFM applicant fool you. Most are very unrealistic and meant to demonstrate community service. With so many applicants that have never done radio, they learn their initial plans cannot work. There might be an oldies show or two on one or two of the stations once they get going. So many times the plan might be a two hour talk show with telephone talk but they try that first show and figure a five minute program is more realistic. A two hour show takes so much prep it is almost impossible to find a volunteer willing to do it even if they had the spare hours for prep. My point is a few of these stations might become almost all music...maybe some of it will be oldies.
 
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