Congress and LPFM
The Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 2005
Within months of the FCC’s creation of the LPFM service in January 2000, the National Association of Broadcasters had a bill in the House of Representatives sharply curtailing the scope of the service. Touting claims of interference that have since been proven false (see MITRE Report), complete with fabricated audio of potential LPFM interference, the NAB soon convinced the Senate to pass a similar bill later that year, entitled the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act. The Act:
- required third adjacent minimum distance separations (link to third adjacent page) for existing full power stations
- declared any previously issued licenses that conflicted with these separations invalid
- ordered the FCC to conduct independent testing to consider the potential impact of LPFM interference, and report back to Congress.
The language of the act was tucked into an unrelated appropriations bill, the District of Columbia Appropriations Act, and signed into law by President Clinton in December of 2001. The FCC adopted an order pursuant to the act in March 2001, eliminating hundreds of pending LPFM applications, and eliminating LPFM in most urban areas.
The Mitre Report
The Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 2000, in addition to eliminating hundreds of potential LPFM stations, required the FCC to do “independent testing” to consider the effect of potential LPFM interference on incumbent broadcasters. The FCC hired the Mitre corporation to conduct the study at a cost of over two million dollars. The results systematically refuted each of the NAB’s claims, and vindicated LPFM activists.
The Mitre Report found that:
- eliminating third adjacent channel separation would not increase interference
- LPFM would have no impact on digital radio
- there was therefore no need to consider the economic impact of LPFM on incumbent broadcasters
On the basis of the Mitre Report the FCC recommended that Congress eliminate the third-adjacent minimum distance separation between LPFM. Congress has yet to act. Until then, the FCC is bound by Congress to enforce needless separation.
Third Adjacent Minimum Distance Separation
This long name describes a relatively simple idea, which has big implications for the availability of LPFM. Minimum distance separations are like a bubble around existing broadcast station antennas and their frequencies that prevent other stations from interfering. The adjacency rules were set in the late 1940’s when FM radio was in its infancy, and technological improvements in the intervening 50 years made it possible to put radio stations closer together without risk of interference. LPFM was designed to take advantage of this, filling these newly available gaps with small, community-based stations. In its initial order creating LPFM, the FCC provided minimum distance separations out to the second adjacent station. This meant that if there was an existing station 91.5, then there could be no LPFM stations above the existing station at 91.7(first adjacent) or 91.9 (second adjacent), or below it at 91.3, or 91.1. In fact, LPFM advocates such as the Prometheus Radio Project argued that anything beyond first adjacent separation was unnecessary, but the FCC adopted a compromise solution. Translators, technically identical to LPFM transmitters are bound by much less stringent adjacency rules. By forcing the FCC to adopt third adjacent minimum distance separation, Congress extended the bubble even further, eliminating the possibility of LPFM outright in many major cities, and making LPFM a largely rural phenomena.