All legal advice for starting micro radio station says that you must get a license from the FCC before you start, oh well, that should be easy, shouldn’t it?
Micro radio stations are also known as low power FM stations as they operate with only 1 to 100 watts of power. They generally cover a radius of up to 3.5 miles; hence, they really are ‘local radio.’ In order to legally start a radio station, even a low power or micro radio station, you have to apply for a license from the FCC.
Applying to the FCC for a Low Power FM Station License
Here’s the good bit, taken directly from the FCC government website “NOTICE: THE FCC IS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR NEW LPFM BROADCAST STATIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME”. Well, that’s the end of that then, it’s back to the spare bedroom with the antenna on a broom handle out of the window!
All is not lost, well, not quite anyway. They do go on to say that you can apply for a new LPFM station during specific dates, but they won’t tell you when the specific dates are, and if you apply when it isn’t the specific dates, your application is returned. Hmmm, let’s see if we’ve got this straight:
- Applications to the FCC for new LPFM broadcast stations are closed
- Applications will re-open but the FCC don’t know when
- If you apply when they applications are closed, they’ll send your application back (they won’t just keep it then, for when it opens again!)
- If you want to know when applications will be open again, keep having a look at the website, every day, nobody actually says how long the application process will be open again for, and it would be a shame to miss such a small window of opportunity!
The FCC, in their defense, do have one piece of very useful advice. They don’t advise you to spend any money on equipment or start up, before you have your license. Wonder why that is then?