The hypocrisy of the FCC never ceases to amaze me. Michael O'Rielly insists on stamping out the scourge of pirate radio while the agency bends over backwards to give spectrum to unlicensed users at the expense of licensed TV broadcasters. "There may not be any channels left for your TV stations after the auction, but we'll make sure unlicensed users get a channel or two."
His suggestion that, “Alternatively, those truly interested in operating a legal broadcast station can seek to participate in the commission’s July 2015 auction, in which 131 FM construction permits will be available, many in smaller and less expensive markets,” is unrealistic. Those CPs are the bottom of the barrel. With many of them, you would be broadcasting to lizards and coyotes instead of humans. And look at what has been happening to CP winners in the last FM auction. They file their applications and immediately all manner of creatures crawl out of the woodwork (including competing broadcasters) filing informal objections, necessitating that the CP holder hire a communications lawyer to address them. The same has been true for many LPFM CP holders. The whole process is a sick joke.
I would suggest the FCC consider an LPAM service but since the Commission can't seem to make a decision on the Revitalize AM Broadcast Radio Service NPRM a year and half after its publication and comment period, what good would it do? Is it any wonder that ordinary citizens, tired of waiting on a sclerotic FCC to open filing windows or to suffer through an excruciating and expensive auction process, decide to pick up a cheap transmitter and antenna and start broadcasting? To be sure, pirate broadcasting is a problem that needs to be addressed but not in the way O'Rielly imagines.
