A FCC license is available to anyone that plans for it. You have a LPFM window, a non com window, and another commercial window coming up in the next 24 months (estimate). True, there might not be a frequency available in your market, but if you want a station bad enough you can find another location. I know several visually impaired owners who own stations that had a desire and drive to own a station and made it happen.
Not everyone can get an LPFM license. You must be a registered nonprofit or religious organization to qualify for a license.
Frank you can go to your local courthouse and file a non-profit and it doesn't have to be a 501 (c) (3). It is very simple.
Your education purpose could be to preserve local radio, preservation of oldies music, classic country, community group of volunteer broadcasters. As long as the organization is run in accordance with underwriting, fundraising, board guidelines. Many stations are being run in homes or in backyards on the premise on the associations listed. You do have to state you are producing a certain amount of hours of programming locally. That could be recorded or voicetracked. It just has to be local.
In some states the requirement is much harder and much more costly. For example, in CA to use one of the standardized online services is going to cost around $300, but if you use a lawyer then the fee might be several thousand... plus annual reports that have to be done and filed.
Far too much trouble. If the process was simple, I would probably apply for a license. All of the paperwork and time required for record-keeping and other such matters make the whole thing less attractive.
That is the case of any small business. Definition of entrepreneur : one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business. No regrets on my auction FM's. Even if I crash and burn tomorrow it was worth it.
Hopefully someone intelligent will be around to discourage minority group members from buying radio stations because, generally speaking, they are a very bad investment.
Ten or twenty years ago a broadcast license might have been desired by minority groups in order to have control over their own content even if it was a bad investment. Today it seems that online options might be at least as effective as broadcast, while allowing less money to be lost.
Pirates are indeed a "real problem" as their generally cheap equipment will often interfere with other stations, aeronautical bands and other services.
I only bought my first three licenses... 570, 805 and 590 kHz in Quito. The rest, 7 AMs and about a dozen FMs, were all original grants. The first I bought, though, was a CP for 570 and it was as if it were a brand new license. Built from ground up with home-made transmitter even!
Since 1991 everything I've signed on, owned, or been involved with was part of the 80-90 docket. The two I own now were part of the FCC auction process.
The FCC has plenty to do. They just don't have the money or authority to do what needs to be done.
