As major broadcasters push the FCC to loosen ownership rules so they can better compete with streaming platforms and digital giants, a low-power FM advocacy group is warning regulators not to overlook the smallest stations fighting simply to survive.
The Low Power FM Advocacy Group has filed comments in the FCC’s biennial communications marketplace review (GN Docket No. 26-78) arguing any assessment of audio competition should separately examine whether LPFMs can realistically remain viable in a marketplace increasingly dominated by streaming audio, podcasts, smart speakers, connected cars, satellite radio and digital platforms.
The National Association of Broadcasters and station groups including Connoisseur Media have argued broadcasters need relief from ownership caps because they are no longer competing just against one another, but against big tech companies. LPFM advocates say that same competitive transformation is also threatening the survival of community-based LPFM stations — but with far fewer resources or regulatory tools available to adapt.
“The Commission should not measure LPFM competition by counting licenses alone,” Executive Director Dave Solomon writes in the filing. “The relevant question is whether an LPFM station has a realistic ability to survive as a useful local audio provider over the next five and 10 years.”
LPFM-AG says the current regulatory structure leaves many low-power stations trapped with outdated technical limitations while the broader audio marketplace rapidly evolves around them. The group argues LPFM operators are expected to compete for audience attention in the same fragmented media environment as larger broadcasters, yet remain capped at 100-watts while FM translators can operate with up to 250-watts and often enjoy greater operational flexibility.
“That is not spectrum efficiency. It is not competition policy. It is not localism,” Solomon says. “It is a regulatory workaround that imposes avoidable costs on the smallest local broadcasters.”
Solomon proposes what he calls a “Practical Survivability Parity” standard that would judge whether LPFMs have a fair opportunity to remain on the air, preserve usable signals, recover from interference or displacement, and continue operating as local institutions.
“LPFM is not merely a smaller version of full-power FM,” says Solomon. “It is a locally eligible, nonprofit, community-originating radio service created to add local voices to the public airwaves.”
The filing contrasts LPFMs with FM translators, arguing the FCC has effectively created a system where translators often have a stronger “survival toolkit” than the community stations actually originating local programming. It points to FCC station totals showing there are now 2,007 LPFMs nationwide compared to 8,854 FM translators and boosters — a ratio of more than four-to-one.
Among Solomon’s proposals to shore up the service is allowing LPFMs to operate with translator-equivalent facilities of up to 250-watts where technically feasible, modernizing translator rules for LPFMs, requiring mitigation efforts when full-power station upgrades displace LPFMs, and revisiting restrictions on funding and barter arrangements that low-power advocate says limit access to programming and operational support.
The filing also argues that LPFM stations face a far different economic environment than when the service was created in the early 2000s. “A voice that cannot survive cannot serve,” the filing concludes.
The comments were filed in the FCC’s latest communications marketplace review, which Congress requires the agency to complete every two years to assess competition across media and communications sectors. The proceeding is also expected to help shape the FCC’s broader review of media ownership rules.