There are a lot of threads about what radio should be, a lot of threads debating the FCCs role in defining the proper and practical uses of radio.
What we seldom discuss is the changing role, the changing definition of "community". I'm not sure the FCC has EVER wrapped it's collective head around community.
Because it is my "home state", the place where I worked for five different radio stations before venturing across the state line to discover the rest of the world, I now and then venture over to the ARKANSAS board just to see what they are talking about and if anyone still functions there that I would remember. During my Arkansas years I developed my habit of a "Busman's Holiday"... visiting every radio station I could find. Back during those days I ventured into about 65% of the existing stations in the state. I didn't know everybody in the business, but I knew who they were and where they were. Ownership changes back then moved with the speed of molasses on a cold day.
Today the typical FM station in Arkansas (or any other state) is licensed to a community that sends me to the Atlas to figure out. "Oh yea. I used to drive through there on the way back to our hometown. It had a population of 50 people." So where is their studio, and WHERE is their customer base? And while following such a puzzle yesterday, I had this "Aha!" moment.
COMMUNITY! 50 years ago your community typically was about 8 to 20 miles across. (Not the town, the community... swamps, forests, goat ranches and all.) We were still a significantly rural nation. Each county seat tended to be a little fiefdom of politics, of retailing, of education, of churches. Each county had a feudal lord of politics, maybe 2 or 3 competing to be the feudal lord of retailing, a feudal lord of education, and 3 to 5 preachers playing king-of-the-mountain to be the local feudal lord of Christianity.
I went to a high school with about 40 students in each grade. Two years before I got there, they had been three separate school districts. There were NO CHOICES of what courses you would take. EVERYBODY took the same thing. I don't care if you planned to farm, to practice medicine, to preach, or become an accountant, every male student took FOUR YEARS of "Agri". No exceptions. And the girls all took four year of "Home Ec".
When radio burst onto the scene the FCC didn't need to spend much time defining what was a community when it mandated: "You should provide SERVICE to your community."
And much like the leaders of Europe arbitrarily divided up the old Ottoman Empire a century ago with some awkward boundaries in the Middle East (which today gives us a rather nasty political climate in that part of the world).... the F.M. spectrum engineering has planted powerful FM transmitters in non-explainable lolcations creating listening areas ( a.k.a. "communities") that make about as much sense as some of the middle-east national boundaries.
State and Federal government has pushed for rural area school consolidation until we have school boundaries that also look like we are living through the disembowelment of the Ottoman empire again.
The coming of the new Mega-churches has people driving 20 to 50 miles to a "community" called church, while driving 20 to 50 miles another direction to a "community" called employment.
How many women regularly drive 20 to 50 miles for a community called shopping.
And the youth travel 30 to 150 miles to a community called CONCERT.
And I am this old geezer still trying to come up with a magic formula that will make "local radio" once again be relevant.
What we seldom discuss is the changing role, the changing definition of "community". I'm not sure the FCC has EVER wrapped it's collective head around community.
Because it is my "home state", the place where I worked for five different radio stations before venturing across the state line to discover the rest of the world, I now and then venture over to the ARKANSAS board just to see what they are talking about and if anyone still functions there that I would remember. During my Arkansas years I developed my habit of a "Busman's Holiday"... visiting every radio station I could find. Back during those days I ventured into about 65% of the existing stations in the state. I didn't know everybody in the business, but I knew who they were and where they were. Ownership changes back then moved with the speed of molasses on a cold day.
Today the typical FM station in Arkansas (or any other state) is licensed to a community that sends me to the Atlas to figure out. "Oh yea. I used to drive through there on the way back to our hometown. It had a population of 50 people." So where is their studio, and WHERE is their customer base? And while following such a puzzle yesterday, I had this "Aha!" moment.
COMMUNITY! 50 years ago your community typically was about 8 to 20 miles across. (Not the town, the community... swamps, forests, goat ranches and all.) We were still a significantly rural nation. Each county seat tended to be a little fiefdom of politics, of retailing, of education, of churches. Each county had a feudal lord of politics, maybe 2 or 3 competing to be the feudal lord of retailing, a feudal lord of education, and 3 to 5 preachers playing king-of-the-mountain to be the local feudal lord of Christianity.
I went to a high school with about 40 students in each grade. Two years before I got there, they had been three separate school districts. There were NO CHOICES of what courses you would take. EVERYBODY took the same thing. I don't care if you planned to farm, to practice medicine, to preach, or become an accountant, every male student took FOUR YEARS of "Agri". No exceptions. And the girls all took four year of "Home Ec".
When radio burst onto the scene the FCC didn't need to spend much time defining what was a community when it mandated: "You should provide SERVICE to your community."
And much like the leaders of Europe arbitrarily divided up the old Ottoman Empire a century ago with some awkward boundaries in the Middle East (which today gives us a rather nasty political climate in that part of the world).... the F.M. spectrum engineering has planted powerful FM transmitters in non-explainable lolcations creating listening areas ( a.k.a. "communities") that make about as much sense as some of the middle-east national boundaries.
State and Federal government has pushed for rural area school consolidation until we have school boundaries that also look like we are living through the disembowelment of the Ottoman empire again.
The coming of the new Mega-churches has people driving 20 to 50 miles to a "community" called church, while driving 20 to 50 miles another direction to a "community" called employment.
How many women regularly drive 20 to 50 miles for a community called shopping.
And the youth travel 30 to 150 miles to a community called CONCERT.
And I am this old geezer still trying to come up with a magic formula that will make "local radio" once again be relevant.