I took a look at some of the LPFM applications. Some look rather interesting. Some are in unusual spots. Some are proposing unusual formats. Quite a few offer to teach broadcasting which I find interesting since most LPFM applicants have zero radio experience. As usual many are religious. As usual there are plentiful ‘community’ stations meaning typically left leaning talk and freeform music.
I can share a couple of quick basics I learned. The reason you are on the radio is to reach listeners…the more, the better. To do this you need an identity. Part of that is your dial position. The other part is your ‘handle’. I happen to think your town and dial position work well (ie: Cypress Radio 1-0-3-point-5 in Cypress, Texas is especially good as it says where they are on the dial and the community they serve).
Consensus is the key to many listeners. This means you play and air what as many in your service area like. Part of that consensus is to demonstrate you’re the local station. I’m amazed the number of LPFMs that do community calendar a couple of times a week. I say at least once an hour you should be doing a community announcement. Two an hour is even better. Every listener should know you’re local.
Now to the applications. I notice Weather Alert Radio Network with about 100 applications in areas subject to hurricanes, wildfires and bad weather. Some are in ultra low population areas. Two are in Kenedy County, Texas with 328 people. There’s other such applicants proposing primarily a weather format. This might be a good option for LPFMs in areas where weather is important. There are many people who prefer going to one place for complete weather information (not 4 or 5 sites for info). The key is publicity. Also, the stations must have secure feeds and off the grid abilities in bad weather times. If you were in Houston, Texas for Tropical Storm Alison, you know your phone (both cell and landline) was none to very iffy for a few days. Getting information was very difficult for everybody but TV stations that ran commercial free around the clock as 911 went down, 34 of the 35 evacuation centers flooded, every major road went under water and hospitals shipped out all the patients they could as electrical outages prevailed. All that happened from a Tropical Storm that happened to dump over 8 inches of rain in one hour around midnight. So those that say it’s a waste, if you were in Houston then, you’d understand why I disagree. 18 wheelers were bobbing in water on I-10. KHOU TV broadcast from the van on their elevated parking lot once their building flooded. People were calling TV stations in the fleeting moments you could get a call through to report 911 isn’t working and their house was knee-deep in water. Anchors would air the address and ask any viewer that could get there safely to rescue them.
A few are looking at agricultural emphasis. That could be a nice niche in areas where farming is the primary portion of the economy. There would need to be a local emphasis. As long as it’s not Hank Kimball as the County Agent and Ness Lesmann on Hog Reports, you should be fine.
Some are in very small population centers. The largest of what I call small is Milton, Tennessee, this proposed station offers a programming description that seems reasonable and doable given the station will be tied in to the Community Center (literally the café/general store) where locals gather to visit and have functions and meetings. I figure just over 1,300 in the 60 dbu and with some work, they might be able to rustle up about $400 a month to support the station.
There’s Baileyville, Kansas. It seems to be positioned at a farmhouse outside this tiny town. It appears the 60 dbu will hit about 400-450 people. From the best I can tell, Baieyville’s zip code has 5 businesses. The format description is good and the station hopes to broadcast city council meetings each month which really don’t run too long in a town of 176 people. Local information and weather are included as this is tornado alley. The problem I see is finding the dollars to keep it going. It could be an interesting local small town station. I’ll get back to a station in a small town about the same size before it upgraded.
Last in my short list is Forks of Salmon/Sawyers Bar, California. I figure about 60 people might be served by this applicant which is the community club. This is a very isolated area where some if not most live off the grid. What we take as a given is not available here including roads. The road is a paved one lane with very few pull outs for passing. There’s not much to do other than the Community Club, so even though the population is tiny, a local station might not just work but given the flooding and wildfire threats, it might be the only reliable source of local information that is needed.
Some will never get granted. Some will never be built and I’d say about a third that do go on air won’t last more than about three years. Those that love radio and opt for a LPFM will learn an LPFM is a 24/7 job that goes with you as part of your life. Taking vacations or days off will revolve around somebody you can get to watch your station and even then you have to be available ‘just in case’. It can wear on you especially if you are the one that mostly feeds the kitty called LPFM.
Talking small town radio, there was an FM in a town of a bit over 180 and over 400 in the 60 dbu. It was essentially a Low Power FM. As I understand things, it was put on the air and was awaiting a Construction Permit to go to 25,000 watts at 100 meters. The station was still using carts and they had maybe 50 songs, all currents that leaned Adult Contemporary but was mostly top 40 and a couple of dozen older songs up to about 6 months old. It was all requests and dedications. There was no music wheel or hot clock. The station was in a tiny building. I can't recall exactly but I think it was 12 by 16. It had a 4 channel board as I recall. The jocks were live and likely their first gig in radio. Locals listened and called and it was highly encouraged. Much of the jock chatter was mentioning names and workplaces, birthdays, requests and other assorted stuff. Community announcements were to be read one at a time at least twice an hour. In morning drive it was 6 an hour with weather added every 10 minutes. After 9am weather was about a 12 hour forecast. Commercials were 10 seconds, typed on 3 by 5 index cards. There were few commercials. There was no record/play cart machine. The owner owned a couple of other stations and they got new songs already on cart when the owner came by. I recall at night and on weekends there were high schoolers working much of the time and the kids were calling and dedicating and requesting songs. At night or on the weekend the top song might get played every hour. As I recall they were billing around $350 a month. The tiny town had a school and seemed to be sort of an area shopping hub. Sure this was long ago but the station sounded so active and fun I would have taken a job if it had been offered. By the way, the station did upgrade but I lost track of where it moved. If I had to guess, I suppose the CP holder had to build out something and apply for a license but the guy surely lost a bunch of money before upgrading. It was one of my favorite visits to a station.
I can share a couple of quick basics I learned. The reason you are on the radio is to reach listeners…the more, the better. To do this you need an identity. Part of that is your dial position. The other part is your ‘handle’. I happen to think your town and dial position work well (ie: Cypress Radio 1-0-3-point-5 in Cypress, Texas is especially good as it says where they are on the dial and the community they serve).
Consensus is the key to many listeners. This means you play and air what as many in your service area like. Part of that consensus is to demonstrate you’re the local station. I’m amazed the number of LPFMs that do community calendar a couple of times a week. I say at least once an hour you should be doing a community announcement. Two an hour is even better. Every listener should know you’re local.
Now to the applications. I notice Weather Alert Radio Network with about 100 applications in areas subject to hurricanes, wildfires and bad weather. Some are in ultra low population areas. Two are in Kenedy County, Texas with 328 people. There’s other such applicants proposing primarily a weather format. This might be a good option for LPFMs in areas where weather is important. There are many people who prefer going to one place for complete weather information (not 4 or 5 sites for info). The key is publicity. Also, the stations must have secure feeds and off the grid abilities in bad weather times. If you were in Houston, Texas for Tropical Storm Alison, you know your phone (both cell and landline) was none to very iffy for a few days. Getting information was very difficult for everybody but TV stations that ran commercial free around the clock as 911 went down, 34 of the 35 evacuation centers flooded, every major road went under water and hospitals shipped out all the patients they could as electrical outages prevailed. All that happened from a Tropical Storm that happened to dump over 8 inches of rain in one hour around midnight. So those that say it’s a waste, if you were in Houston then, you’d understand why I disagree. 18 wheelers were bobbing in water on I-10. KHOU TV broadcast from the van on their elevated parking lot once their building flooded. People were calling TV stations in the fleeting moments you could get a call through to report 911 isn’t working and their house was knee-deep in water. Anchors would air the address and ask any viewer that could get there safely to rescue them.
A few are looking at agricultural emphasis. That could be a nice niche in areas where farming is the primary portion of the economy. There would need to be a local emphasis. As long as it’s not Hank Kimball as the County Agent and Ness Lesmann on Hog Reports, you should be fine.
Some are in very small population centers. The largest of what I call small is Milton, Tennessee, this proposed station offers a programming description that seems reasonable and doable given the station will be tied in to the Community Center (literally the café/general store) where locals gather to visit and have functions and meetings. I figure just over 1,300 in the 60 dbu and with some work, they might be able to rustle up about $400 a month to support the station.
There’s Baileyville, Kansas. It seems to be positioned at a farmhouse outside this tiny town. It appears the 60 dbu will hit about 400-450 people. From the best I can tell, Baieyville’s zip code has 5 businesses. The format description is good and the station hopes to broadcast city council meetings each month which really don’t run too long in a town of 176 people. Local information and weather are included as this is tornado alley. The problem I see is finding the dollars to keep it going. It could be an interesting local small town station. I’ll get back to a station in a small town about the same size before it upgraded.
Last in my short list is Forks of Salmon/Sawyers Bar, California. I figure about 60 people might be served by this applicant which is the community club. This is a very isolated area where some if not most live off the grid. What we take as a given is not available here including roads. The road is a paved one lane with very few pull outs for passing. There’s not much to do other than the Community Club, so even though the population is tiny, a local station might not just work but given the flooding and wildfire threats, it might be the only reliable source of local information that is needed.
Some will never get granted. Some will never be built and I’d say about a third that do go on air won’t last more than about three years. Those that love radio and opt for a LPFM will learn an LPFM is a 24/7 job that goes with you as part of your life. Taking vacations or days off will revolve around somebody you can get to watch your station and even then you have to be available ‘just in case’. It can wear on you especially if you are the one that mostly feeds the kitty called LPFM.
Talking small town radio, there was an FM in a town of a bit over 180 and over 400 in the 60 dbu. It was essentially a Low Power FM. As I understand things, it was put on the air and was awaiting a Construction Permit to go to 25,000 watts at 100 meters. The station was still using carts and they had maybe 50 songs, all currents that leaned Adult Contemporary but was mostly top 40 and a couple of dozen older songs up to about 6 months old. It was all requests and dedications. There was no music wheel or hot clock. The station was in a tiny building. I can't recall exactly but I think it was 12 by 16. It had a 4 channel board as I recall. The jocks were live and likely their first gig in radio. Locals listened and called and it was highly encouraged. Much of the jock chatter was mentioning names and workplaces, birthdays, requests and other assorted stuff. Community announcements were to be read one at a time at least twice an hour. In morning drive it was 6 an hour with weather added every 10 minutes. After 9am weather was about a 12 hour forecast. Commercials were 10 seconds, typed on 3 by 5 index cards. There were few commercials. There was no record/play cart machine. The owner owned a couple of other stations and they got new songs already on cart when the owner came by. I recall at night and on weekends there were high schoolers working much of the time and the kids were calling and dedicating and requesting songs. At night or on the weekend the top song might get played every hour. As I recall they were billing around $350 a month. The tiny town had a school and seemed to be sort of an area shopping hub. Sure this was long ago but the station sounded so active and fun I would have taken a job if it had been offered. By the way, the station did upgrade but I lost track of where it moved. If I had to guess, I suppose the CP holder had to build out something and apply for a license but the guy surely lost a bunch of money before upgrading. It was one of my favorite visits to a station.
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