Category: Announcements || By Staff Report

Last week, the U.S. House and Senate passed versions of the Local Community Radio Act, which was championed and introduced by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, a Democrat from Forest Hills whose district includes the Mon-Yough area.

President Obama is expected to sign the legislation, which would lift restrictions on so-called low-power FM, or LPFM, radio stations. These stations, which would be owned by non-profit community groups and governmental agencies, were part of a new class of stations created by the Federal Communications Commission to operate at 10 or 100 watts on the FM band.

But under heavy lobbying from large broadcasting companies and National Public Radio, Congress in 2000 restricted these stations to operating at least four dial positions away from existing full-power stations on the FM dial, effectively blocking LPFM radio stations from being created in the Pittsburgh area and other major metropolitan areas.

A partner organization of Tube City Community Media Inc., Lightning Community Broadcasting Inc., was formed in 1999 to apply for an LPFM license in the McKeesport-White Oak area. Lightning would have created a community-run, non-commercial public radio station serving the Mon-Yough area.

(Tube City Community Media Inc. is the non-profit corporation which operates Tube City Online. The executive director of Tube City, Jason Togyer, is a founding member of Lightning, and remains a volunteer for that group, but is no longer a member of its board of directors.)

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Tube City Community Media Inc. will wait until the FCC announces a filing window before deciding whether to pursue a license, either on its own, or with partner organizations. It has remained in continuous contact with the City of McKeesport, Penn State Greater Allegheny Campus and other interested stakeholders about creating such a station.

We remain convinced that the Mon Valley could support and use a community FM station. Yesterday, for instance, Tube City recorded the holiday concert of the McKeesport Symphony Pops for broadcast over Pittsburgh's WRCT-FM on Friday morning.

There's no reason that a McKeesport-based radio station shouldn't be airing coverage of the symphony, or International Village, McKeesport Area school board and City Council, and other events of interest, including sports and religious programming.

Although there are two stations licensed to McKeesport, they are not covering those kinds of events, and Tube City is not prepared to "buy" or "broker" time to air those events.

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One serious problem that wasn't present in 1999, however, is that many frequencies which could have supported either a 10-watt or 100-watt low-power FM station were sold beginning in 2004 to what are called "translators." These FM stations, with power output ranging up to 250 watts, were originally intended to boost FM radio reception in fringe listening areas.

They are now often used by out-of-state broadcasters (many of them affiliated with conservative Christian churches) to extend their networks. A frequency at 94.1 FM, for instance, that's licensed to Clairton is currently operated as part of the "K-Love" Christian radio network run by California-based Educational Media Foundation.

That would prevent a new 10- or 100-watt LPFM station from serving the Clairton, Glassport and Jefferson Hills area using that frequency. That's unfortunate for Clairton, and for the future of the radio industry, which is no longer attracting new talent or young listeners.

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It could be argued that the FCC, under President George W. Bush, opened a translator application window in 2003 --- and eventually licensed thousands of new translators --- specifically to stop low-power FM stations from taking those frequencies. That's not meant as a partisan statement; it speaks more to the influence of corporate money on regulators and legislators over the past 10 years than to any partisan divide of Republicans vs. Democrats.

The FCC is also now allowing AM stations to translate their signals on FM, which has made those FM translators even more valuable (and more expensive to purchase).

The new legislation specifically protects translators from being bumped off of frequencies by low-power FM stations, making it unclear what frequencies --- if any --- would be available on the FM band for Tube City or any other group.

Preliminary engineering data indicates that at least two low-power stations are possible in the communities served by the McKeesport Area School District, but both would be limited to only 10 watts.

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