bturner said:
A couple of words of caution for aspiring LPFMers.
We all live in insulated worlds whether in the big city or small town. We have a natural tendency to rationalize success based on our friends liking what we propose to do. I'm not try to discourage but I am saying I've seen some learn that the format they wanted to do only had listeners included in that small inner circle and they were not very good at supporting what you do. Stepping outside your circle of influence is a wise thing because you discover your dream format might be tweaked a bit to become the dream station to quite a few. Just remember your station is not about you but the community you will serve. I worked for one guy that dreamed of owning a classical music station. He bought his first station and did country music because that's what most folks in his service area wanted. He was not a fan of country music.
Think money. The biggest mistake made by LPFMers is finding more funding than they need. Funding is fickle and so are expenses. If you need X amount, strive for more funding. What if you're on the air for 3 months and suffer a lightning strike and need a new transmitter? Don't stop generating funding when you just have the bills covered. Some savings for emergencies is always needed. If you hate sales, learn to like it. It's not really sales but going out to make friends and working for their success. It's not those that don't want another friend that count but those who extend the friendship. Remember, they need to be visited quite a bit to get to know you and trust you, so don't give up.
You will be a prisoner to your station. It works 24/7/365 and so will you. You need to ask yourself how deep is your a love of radio?
Do less than you can financially do. In other words, don't spend everything in your account. People that tune in will see every advancement you make as success and every cutback as failure. People want to ride the coat tails of winers. Budget yourself so you never have to take a step back.
Remember, LPFM reaches a micro-market. You need as many listeners in this tiny market as possible to succeed. 1% of 10,000 or 30,000 is not many people. Think long and hard about doing a niche format. If you have 100 listeners is that enough to fund your station or will you be funding it from your own pocket? Can you afford that? Also, it might take a couple of years to build to the point of having enough in donations/underwriting to pay for the operation.
I'm not trying to act like I know it all, I sure don't. I do know a bunch of LPFM operators and I've been a GM of a couple of stations. I've fallen into about any trap you can think of and some I haven't thought of yet, so you might say I learned the hard way. And I am passionate about radio too, so I have a pretty good idea of your thinking process since it's the same I've had.
One wise radio station owner told me once: You are your biggest fan of your format and always will be because you are driven to put your best out there. Just don't expect other fans no matter what they tell you. Nothing beats building a station from the ground up with a clean slate.
As the guy who programs a fairly successful LP-FM, I couldn't agree more with the points in your post.
It's OK, I suppose, to want to program "something different". BUT, before you do it try and find out if the type of programming you want to offer is something your community will actually listen to.
I tell people on these boards over and over and over again that in radio, "if you build it, they will come", is not necessarily true. Many stations fail because there's no audience for what they're programming, or else, their programming is too scattershot, or to use an old radio term...AOR (for "all over the road"!)
The station I work with got a local church to help them with a simple study...phone calls in the evening to 100 households in the villages the station's signal covers. You might be interested to know that the most often mentioned desired format (by almost 6 out of 10 respondents) was "oldies".
Once you know if there's a defined format you can occupy, don't try to reinvent radio. Now, I know this grates against a few people on these boards, but what do the successful companies know that you don't know? OK, I know there's some pretty lousy companies in radio today, but not all of them are. Look at the ones that are successful in the format you want for your local community. You don't have to copy word for word what they do, but listen for the common threads you see making them successful and apply them to your station in your own way.
Make your station sound professional. Sure, you may be working with volunteers who will sound like (and maybe are) newbies. But put a professional sound around them. Then work with your volunteers to help them improve their performance. (If they won't take the advice, kick 'em out the door...there's no room for egos at this level of broadcasting.)
Make sure you have decent processing on your station. $199 bucks and an old, but serviceable desktop computer will buy you Breakaway Broadcast. I'm using it. It works great and is a reasonable digital processor. Get microphone processors, too...at least on your main studio microphones.
Establish a standard bit rate for your music. At my station, every song is ripped in at 320K mp-3. Wav files are better, of course, but if you need to conserve hard drive space a bit, 320 is acceptable. Don't let your volunteer DJ's play from their i-Pods. So many people are listening to crappy 128K and 192K mp-3's on those...and it is noticeable on the air when you play a crappy mp-3 next to a good one.
Need to get some music? Long as you're paying your music licensing fees, go to a business like uncompressedmusic.com. $1.25 a cut is about the cheapest deal around for .wav file downloads. And yes, they work with LP-FM's.
Then, enlist the co-operation of the mayor and/or council in your town, have a local news presence (even if it's a weekly summary of news airing twice a day). Do local weather and school delays and closings for your area. This can be done even if you don't have a live staffer. Establish a relationship with the local newspaper and/or a paper that your audience routinely reads. Have a cable company in town? See if they'll run your audio on a local events channel.
In 3 years, our station has gone from 12 to almost 100 underwriters. Our station succeeds because we sound pro...comparable to the sound of stations in two much bigger markets over an hour away. Still, we have local shows, local voices (both trained and untrained)...and it all runs out of a desktop PC in a studio inside our local municipal offices. (We are owned by the village the station calls home.) We're not overly profitable, but we have been able to put a little back into the business this year and that's a good thing.
And yes, know the rules. You're not a commercial station and you can't be using "calls to action" and other "selling" language...neither in your spots or announcer comments. Have a public file and keep it up to date. Good luck.
If you want some advice or have a question, you can send me a message thru these boards.
