I was talking to a friend about a Low Power FM station in a small agricultural community he wants to start. It seems the area has a bit over 200 farmers, ranchers and avid gardeners within the 60 dbu. We’re talking apples and peaches to corn and tomatoes. There’s a couple of tiny dairies, some run chickens or goats and one is a meat producer, running cows. All are quite small. A big farm is about 20 acres and the average is probably about 3 acres. There’s a few that grow using greenhouses.
The people tend to like to make money with their hands. After the growing season some look to arts and crafts while others supplement things with a cottage business. There are quilters, painters, crafters. Some cook, bake or do other things outside the growing season.
There is really not much of a business community but of the services available, they are mostly located on the same property as the home, usually in an outbuilding.
Certainly this is a pretty unique area and you’d need to get creative in finding the support to run the station. Here’s my friend’s idea and it looks like it is being received quite favorably.
His idea is to have members paying, as he puts it, $5 a week in dues. He fears he might have cancellations if he does things by the month, so he proposes billing the bulk of membership in segments based around the growing season, especially as the harvest happens. For example, 25% in January through March, 25% in June, 25% in August and 25% on the 1st of October. The total price of membership is $260 a year. It is the only option.
His idea resolves around allowing all ‘current’ members to receive up to 5 announcements a day, up to 30 seconds in length, to say what is currently available. The members email or call and leave a recorded message with their updates. He gets everything ready for airing and puts it in rotation.
Twice an hour several of these announcements run back to back as a feature on the station. Then he adds a weather forecast and a community announcement or two.
Here’s how the concept works from the ‘member’s’ perspective: they dole out $260 a year in four $65 payments. For that they can offer updates as often as they need on what is happening on the farm and in the off season the same applies to whatever activities for income they might be involved in. They get the announcements anytime they want, up to 5 times a day, 7 days a week. In a sense, it is like a farmer’s swap shop in some ways.
A typical announcement might be “The Barton farm is picking cherry tomatoes, green beans and corn today. Also Marge is baking blueberry muffins and blueberry bread today. Don says he always has fishing worms available. For more information, the Barton farm is located at 3510 130th Avenue North and the phone number is 256-0431“. This would air on a rotating schedule 5 times in a 24 hour period. There might be, perhaps 5 to 10 of these running back to back each half hour in the peak of the harvest season.
I cautioned him these would likely be considered underwriting and pondered if the FCC might see this as ‘too commercial’. In talking with him, we figured an opening and closing for the feature should include the fact all the farms mentioned are ‘members’ who financially support the station and perhaps give information on becoming a member.
It should be noted a member would not get announcements unless they ask. For example, if you are a vineyard planting grapes, you won’t have any grapes to sell when you start. If you grow peaches and that’s it, you might only run announcements during the weeks you have peaches for sale. So, you might only take advantage of the announcements a few weeks a year. I guess the best way to put this, is you become a member for $260 a year. The announcements are merely a perk you get by being a member. You don’t get any announcements unless you want them. That almost makes me wonder if the announcements are truly underwriting . Then the question is if every member must be acknowledged on the air. I also thought of a separate organization set up to handle the members (ie: a local Farmers Market) and the separate organization places the announcements.
While thinking Farmer’s Markets, since such an entity is a non-profit, can you announce what is at the Farmer’s Market as it applies to underwriting for non-profits? Considering the participants are out to make a profit, I wonder. Certainly some farms would only sell at the Farmer's Market, not straight from the farm
At any rate, I thought this was a pretty unique idea. Maybe some other LPFMs out there might look to avid gardeners and small farmers as a revenue source.
I would love to hear your opinions, suggestions and ideas about this. I am always looking for unique ideas and I think this might be one. Would love to learn from you. Whatcha think?
The fellow was even thinking of calling his station the Farmer’s Market and centering his music format toward more acoustic traditional music you’d likely hear at a farmer’s market offering some musical entertainment. He said if he goes this route on music, he’ll center on local and regional musicians.
And, as a parting note: it sounds like a huge amount of work updating the announcements!
The people tend to like to make money with their hands. After the growing season some look to arts and crafts while others supplement things with a cottage business. There are quilters, painters, crafters. Some cook, bake or do other things outside the growing season.
There is really not much of a business community but of the services available, they are mostly located on the same property as the home, usually in an outbuilding.
Certainly this is a pretty unique area and you’d need to get creative in finding the support to run the station. Here’s my friend’s idea and it looks like it is being received quite favorably.
His idea is to have members paying, as he puts it, $5 a week in dues. He fears he might have cancellations if he does things by the month, so he proposes billing the bulk of membership in segments based around the growing season, especially as the harvest happens. For example, 25% in January through March, 25% in June, 25% in August and 25% on the 1st of October. The total price of membership is $260 a year. It is the only option.
His idea resolves around allowing all ‘current’ members to receive up to 5 announcements a day, up to 30 seconds in length, to say what is currently available. The members email or call and leave a recorded message with their updates. He gets everything ready for airing and puts it in rotation.
Twice an hour several of these announcements run back to back as a feature on the station. Then he adds a weather forecast and a community announcement or two.
Here’s how the concept works from the ‘member’s’ perspective: they dole out $260 a year in four $65 payments. For that they can offer updates as often as they need on what is happening on the farm and in the off season the same applies to whatever activities for income they might be involved in. They get the announcements anytime they want, up to 5 times a day, 7 days a week. In a sense, it is like a farmer’s swap shop in some ways.
A typical announcement might be “The Barton farm is picking cherry tomatoes, green beans and corn today. Also Marge is baking blueberry muffins and blueberry bread today. Don says he always has fishing worms available. For more information, the Barton farm is located at 3510 130th Avenue North and the phone number is 256-0431“. This would air on a rotating schedule 5 times in a 24 hour period. There might be, perhaps 5 to 10 of these running back to back each half hour in the peak of the harvest season.
I cautioned him these would likely be considered underwriting and pondered if the FCC might see this as ‘too commercial’. In talking with him, we figured an opening and closing for the feature should include the fact all the farms mentioned are ‘members’ who financially support the station and perhaps give information on becoming a member.
It should be noted a member would not get announcements unless they ask. For example, if you are a vineyard planting grapes, you won’t have any grapes to sell when you start. If you grow peaches and that’s it, you might only run announcements during the weeks you have peaches for sale. So, you might only take advantage of the announcements a few weeks a year. I guess the best way to put this, is you become a member for $260 a year. The announcements are merely a perk you get by being a member. You don’t get any announcements unless you want them. That almost makes me wonder if the announcements are truly underwriting . Then the question is if every member must be acknowledged on the air. I also thought of a separate organization set up to handle the members (ie: a local Farmers Market) and the separate organization places the announcements.
While thinking Farmer’s Markets, since such an entity is a non-profit, can you announce what is at the Farmer’s Market as it applies to underwriting for non-profits? Considering the participants are out to make a profit, I wonder. Certainly some farms would only sell at the Farmer's Market, not straight from the farm
At any rate, I thought this was a pretty unique idea. Maybe some other LPFMs out there might look to avid gardeners and small farmers as a revenue source.
I would love to hear your opinions, suggestions and ideas about this. I am always looking for unique ideas and I think this might be one. Would love to learn from you. Whatcha think?
The fellow was even thinking of calling his station the Farmer’s Market and centering his music format toward more acoustic traditional music you’d likely hear at a farmer’s market offering some musical entertainment. He said if he goes this route on music, he’ll center on local and regional musicians.
And, as a parting note: it sounds like a huge amount of work updating the announcements!
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