I am very displeased to discover that one of the few black owned stations in the USA is being forced off the air so that a wealthy Christion broadcaster can expand their business model. Enhancing one's business by mopping up someone else seems immoral and un-Christian to me. WMXP-LP should file a petition to deny and go to the media and scream loud. This is so wrong.
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What's up with WMXP-LP in Greenville South Carolina
- Thread starter Time Warp
- Start date
- Status
FCC Rules say it's okay. LPFM stations, like translators, can be displaced by a primary signal making a move. LPFMs and Translators are secondary services. Unethical? I think if I was in the full power's shoes. I'd have my engineer work on finding them another frequency to move to. To me that's the right thing to do. The 'wealthy' Christian station didn't force them off. The FCC gave the 'wealthy' Christian station a construction permit with the full knowledge WMXP would be displaced. WMXP knew they were secondary day one and that this could happen. I personally think the FCC should make LPFM primary since it originates programming and translators are, by law, simple repeaters of another signal. But I'm not the FCC. A petition to deny will not be considered by the FCC because no FCC rule is broken.
And, there were once also antique rules that said Rosa Parks needed to sit in the back seat of the bus. So, perhaps we need a National headline in the news for this case.
RIGHT WING CHRISTIAN BROADCASTER FORCES ONE OF AMERICA'S FEW BLACK OWNED RADIO STATIONS OFF THE AIR. SALEM OWNS MORE THAN 100 .RADIO STATIONS. INCLUDING THREE IN THE GREENVILLE SC AREA.
RIGHT WING CHRISTIAN BROADCASTER FORCES ONE OF AMERICA'S FEW BLACK OWNED RADIO STATIONS OFF THE AIR. SALEM OWNS MORE THAN 100 .RADIO STATIONS. INCLUDING THREE IN THE GREENVILLE SC AREA.
Sure, but the same rules apply to everyone. LPFM's are not a protected service, no matter what the race or gender of the licensee.
This case needs to be a National news story Instead of arguing here with those who don't believe unjust rules need changed.
Or, should Rosa Parks have taken the back seat on the bus for the sake of those who didn't mind the back seat? That fits in with what many of you think. Shame! Shame! Shame!
Or, should Rosa Parks have taken the back seat on the bus for the sake of those who didn't mind the back seat? That fits in with what many of you think. Shame! Shame! Shame!
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Time Warp, you seem to be misunderstanding. LPFM stations are secondary stations. They can get booted by any primary station. Same thing happened to a school district station in Michigan this last week and a school district station in Oregon a year or two back. According to Salem's sworn affidavit, their engineer reached out to them to help them relocate (95.5) but they never responded. And Salem did not force them from the air, the FCC did. You are blaming the wrong party. The FCC gave approval to all of this otherwise it would not have happened. The headline needs to be FCC forces. And playing the race card; this would happen to any LPFM. Why not educate yourself on FCC rules and not go off with untrue information and to try to blame it on race.
By the way, I talked to Rosa Parks and if she was being totally honest and not just embellishing a rea story just a little, she had a rough day at work and a terrible headache. The last nerve, so to speak, was walking all the way to the back of the bus. She put her foot down. She had no idea she would be the event that bolstered the civil rights movement. I found her to be an intelligent and kind hearted lady who exuded grace and humility...a national treasure even if she didn't intend to be.
Ironically I met her at a National Religious Broadcasters Convention and got to meet her because a representative from Salem made it possible (she was appearing on one of their talk shows).
Ironically I met her at a National Religious Broadcasters Convention and got to meet her because a representative from Salem made it possible (she was appearing on one of their talk shows).
One more thing. In every other case where a redo station dumped their community of license, there was another full power station licensed to that city. Can any of you name another AM, FM or NCE licensed to Pendleton South Carolina? Looks like the FCC has broken their own rules or at least deviated from long standing FCC policy. Shame! Shame! Shame!
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Actually they haven't deviated because the LPFM is secondary. If the LPFM was primary they would have disallowed the move. I agree LPFM should be primary and it's not a good idea for the FCC to class LPFMs as secondary. I also think 100 watts at 100 feet is too minimal and 250 watts at whatever height fills the 'hole' should be allowed. That's just my opinion. Maybe someday!
Sir,,as much as you want it to be,,,this is not about race. Would you have this energy for a white owned LPFM station? People have told you the legality and you keep circling back to race. Why is that?
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Sir,,,are you associated with WMXP-LP?
Time for a little Michisplaining... I apologize if this post goes long...
When the LPFM service was first adopted in 2000. It was made very clear that LPFM would be a secondary service. WMXP-LP is a first generation LPFM, they had 20 years to know that their station was secondary and the fate of their station could rest on any movement by primary facilities.
However, if this was 2008, the outcome may have been different. After the FCC approved rules for full-service which made it easier to do community of license changes, there was concern that such changes could displace LPFM stations. As a result, the FCC put some regulations into place that would require move-ins like the one that WLTE did here to examine how the move-in would impact LPFM stations. The FCC had determined at the time that if a move-in would cause an LPFM station to be displaced, then the first thing to look at is whether the LPFM can be moved to another channel under the current rules (which at the time included a third-adjacent channel protection requirement). If that was the case, then the move-in could proceed and the LPFM was forced to change channels. If no channels were available under the current rules, then potential channels that met all distance separation rules except second adjacent was looked at (at the time, the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act was in force and while it had a specific exclusion to prevent third-adjacent channel short-spacing, the FCC determined it did not have similar language for second-adjacent). If there was a channel that met co-, first-, third-, IF but not second-, then the LPFM could request an STA to operate on that channel, even if there was population in the overlap area, the FCC would permit the LPFM to change channels. If no channels still could be identified, the FCC would block the full-service move-in.
While all of this was going on, the LPFM proponents were trying to get the Local Community Radio Act passed. There were multiple attempts to get the LCRA passed and each year, it was tried and died.
This interim policy that the FCC put in place over full-service move-ins then became a political football and became a negotiating tool used in the compromise legislation that gave us the 2010 LCRA that was signed into law.
A part of the compromise legislation that was demanded by the NAB was what became Section 5(3), which states that FM Translators, FM Boosters and LPFMs must remain equal in status and secondary to full-service stations. This dealt not only with the move-in issue but also with proposals, which came out of REC's shop that would call for LPFM stations to have priority over "distant translators" (translators where the primary station exceeded a certain distance).
Therefore, in order to get the ability for LPFM stations to get third-adjacent access, the interim policy had to be scrapped.
So, we fast forward to 2023. The LCRA has been around for a decade. The organizations that stood up for the expansion of LPFM have moved on to other things. The once fairly-well-funded Prometheus Radio Project, lost their funding and shuttered their Philadelphia offices and now two people are keeping the candle lit on the LPFM advocacy side while Georgetown Law keeps the Prometheus name alive solely for the purpose of arguing the broadcast ownership issue.
So, why not try for primary service again? Hell, Low Power TV just got another bite of the apple. Low Power TV interests are commercial. Commercial has more money to work with. This means more influence inside the beltway. LPTV also does not have the ownership limits LPFM does. LPTV and LPFM were created for two totally different reasons. LPTV was created to address the lack of localized television custom tailored for a local area. LPFM was a direct response to the lifting of the national ownership caps in the Telecom Act and was created to assure that not all voices on the air were national or regional owners. Rules were put into the LPFM service to address the specific issues, such as a restriction on full-service cross-ownership and then eventually an ownership cap of 1 station.
While full-service has the NAB and large station groups with well-paid lobbyists in DC, LPFM does not have that luxury. LPFM simply does not have the funds to employ people at the same level as the NAB and big broadcast. This puts LPFM at a huge disadvantage in DC. There are some in DC who have spoken out against LPFM along the lines that it is "woke" because of the original movement to establish the service and especially since John McCain was the Republican sponsor of the bipartisan LCRA. If the LCRA was to come up today, it would never get past the House because of these preconceived notions of what LPFM is all about, not realizing that over 50% of LPFM licensees are faith-based.
I want to make something ten-thousand percent clear. The displacement of WMXP-LP had absolutely nothing to do with race. This wasn't Salem trying to attack the African American community. This was Salem looking out for their financial survival and using primary spectrum that they were entitled to.
So how do we change this? First, we need a multi-million dollar infusion of funds to come from the sky that would allow the LPFM movement to put feet on the street in DC and get things going. Not only would the LCRA need to be repealed and replaced, but several other changes in the Communications Act would need to need to be changed. Of course, then the NAB will make demands. What could this mean? Elimination of cross-ownership, commercial status and lifting of ownership caps. With these, we can take what we know today as LPFM and throw it out the window. Many of us fought for the past 25 years to prevent these things from happening.
The bottom line on this whole thing is simple. The Malcolm X Movement filed for an LPFM license that was clearly stated would be secondary. A primary user wanted that spectrum. A primary user got that spectrum. Plain and simple. WMXP-LP knew it (or should have known it) when they applied.
When the LPFM service was first adopted in 2000. It was made very clear that LPFM would be a secondary service. WMXP-LP is a first generation LPFM, they had 20 years to know that their station was secondary and the fate of their station could rest on any movement by primary facilities.
However, if this was 2008, the outcome may have been different. After the FCC approved rules for full-service which made it easier to do community of license changes, there was concern that such changes could displace LPFM stations. As a result, the FCC put some regulations into place that would require move-ins like the one that WLTE did here to examine how the move-in would impact LPFM stations. The FCC had determined at the time that if a move-in would cause an LPFM station to be displaced, then the first thing to look at is whether the LPFM can be moved to another channel under the current rules (which at the time included a third-adjacent channel protection requirement). If that was the case, then the move-in could proceed and the LPFM was forced to change channels. If no channels were available under the current rules, then potential channels that met all distance separation rules except second adjacent was looked at (at the time, the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act was in force and while it had a specific exclusion to prevent third-adjacent channel short-spacing, the FCC determined it did not have similar language for second-adjacent). If there was a channel that met co-, first-, third-, IF but not second-, then the LPFM could request an STA to operate on that channel, even if there was population in the overlap area, the FCC would permit the LPFM to change channels. If no channels still could be identified, the FCC would block the full-service move-in.
While all of this was going on, the LPFM proponents were trying to get the Local Community Radio Act passed. There were multiple attempts to get the LCRA passed and each year, it was tried and died.
This interim policy that the FCC put in place over full-service move-ins then became a political football and became a negotiating tool used in the compromise legislation that gave us the 2010 LCRA that was signed into law.
A part of the compromise legislation that was demanded by the NAB was what became Section 5(3), which states that FM Translators, FM Boosters and LPFMs must remain equal in status and secondary to full-service stations. This dealt not only with the move-in issue but also with proposals, which came out of REC's shop that would call for LPFM stations to have priority over "distant translators" (translators where the primary station exceeded a certain distance).
Therefore, in order to get the ability for LPFM stations to get third-adjacent access, the interim policy had to be scrapped.
So, we fast forward to 2023. The LCRA has been around for a decade. The organizations that stood up for the expansion of LPFM have moved on to other things. The once fairly-well-funded Prometheus Radio Project, lost their funding and shuttered their Philadelphia offices and now two people are keeping the candle lit on the LPFM advocacy side while Georgetown Law keeps the Prometheus name alive solely for the purpose of arguing the broadcast ownership issue.
So, why not try for primary service again? Hell, Low Power TV just got another bite of the apple. Low Power TV interests are commercial. Commercial has more money to work with. This means more influence inside the beltway. LPTV also does not have the ownership limits LPFM does. LPTV and LPFM were created for two totally different reasons. LPTV was created to address the lack of localized television custom tailored for a local area. LPFM was a direct response to the lifting of the national ownership caps in the Telecom Act and was created to assure that not all voices on the air were national or regional owners. Rules were put into the LPFM service to address the specific issues, such as a restriction on full-service cross-ownership and then eventually an ownership cap of 1 station.
While full-service has the NAB and large station groups with well-paid lobbyists in DC, LPFM does not have that luxury. LPFM simply does not have the funds to employ people at the same level as the NAB and big broadcast. This puts LPFM at a huge disadvantage in DC. There are some in DC who have spoken out against LPFM along the lines that it is "woke" because of the original movement to establish the service and especially since John McCain was the Republican sponsor of the bipartisan LCRA. If the LCRA was to come up today, it would never get past the House because of these preconceived notions of what LPFM is all about, not realizing that over 50% of LPFM licensees are faith-based.
I want to make something ten-thousand percent clear. The displacement of WMXP-LP had absolutely nothing to do with race. This wasn't Salem trying to attack the African American community. This was Salem looking out for their financial survival and using primary spectrum that they were entitled to.
So how do we change this? First, we need a multi-million dollar infusion of funds to come from the sky that would allow the LPFM movement to put feet on the street in DC and get things going. Not only would the LCRA need to be repealed and replaced, but several other changes in the Communications Act would need to need to be changed. Of course, then the NAB will make demands. What could this mean? Elimination of cross-ownership, commercial status and lifting of ownership caps. With these, we can take what we know today as LPFM and throw it out the window. Many of us fought for the past 25 years to prevent these things from happening.
The bottom line on this whole thing is simple. The Malcolm X Movement filed for an LPFM license that was clearly stated would be secondary. A primary user wanted that spectrum. A primary user got that spectrum. Plain and simple. WMXP-LP knew it (or should have known it) when they applied.
You guys in your prejudice do not need to give me an education about the FCC's rulemaking process because I was there in the very beginning of the LPFM rulemaking. I was able to get the FCC interested in low power FM by convincing the FCC that LPFM would create opportunities for minorities in our inner cities. So where do you want to draw the line? Throw WMXP under the bus and maybe you or your friends license goes down the toilet next. There is a time to stand up for what's right and that time is now. Cowing to this is not the right thing to do.
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