Jim Ellis
Published: January 21 2004
According to the National Association of Broadcasters’ (NAB) website, www.nab.org, Michael Powell, FCC commissioner, opposes Low Power FM (LPFM) radio.
Powell believes the quality of programming suffers when LPFM stations dilute the airwaves.
NAB also believes that the, “decision to legalize LPFM stations will cause massive interference problems for FM listeners.”
The organization is currently urging Congress to support legislation to reverse the FCC decision to legalize LPFM stations.
An LPFM website representing LPFM owners maintains that “FCC engineers have conducted extensive testing…and found that under these new standards, every radio tested exceeded FCC interference criteria.”
According to Jon Arthur local LPFM owner, current guidelines are sufficient to maintain the service level of high power radio stations.
Also, LPFM owners maintain that low power radio brings radio back to the community. Local politicians have a forum to discuss issues concerning their community.
Furthermore, they contend that local musical bands have a substantially better chance of getting exposure on a local radio station rather than a station in which its programming is decided on in a distant city or state.
“LPFM is good for the community on every level and high powered stations do not want the competition so they throw up these smoke screens,” said Arthur.