Re: NOW: LPFM, WAS: Re: FCC gives ultimatum to Radio Free Brattleboro

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>]

Aaron Read wrote:
>There are always exceptions, but by and large the greatest demand for LPFM 
>service is in cities and that's precisely where you can't fit an LPFM.

Not to be controversial here (moi?), but does every college and high school 
really need their own radio station?  Comments have been made on this list 
numerous times about school stations being off the air for long periods of 
time (even occasionally remembering to turn off the transmitter).  I know 
it's easier to hand out licenses than to take them away, but I wonder if 
anyone at many of these schools gives two beans about "their" 
station.  Other than giving a handful of students a place to go and play 
obscure rap or punk rock songs, many of them aren't really serving any 
purpose.  I'm most familiar with WMBR, but it seems to me that it's the 
community people, not the students that make that station what it is.  I 
wonder if some of these community groups that otherwise can't get on the 
air might work a deal of some sort with some of these underutilized noncom 
stations.  Maybe (and we're getting in tricky waters here) there could be 
some "use it or lose it" provision for licenses (commercial as well as 
non-com...there are plenty of "wasted" commercial stations, too.)