The LPFM Cold War II

Why have an LPFM station?
There are many reasons for starting a radio station, but they essentially break down into six simple categories: Art, Science, Commerce, Ego, Community and Enjoyment.

Broadcasting is a means of expression: communication - art.

It's a fascinating scientific accomplishment and an ongoing challenge to the technically-minded. Software guys are soft - electronics engineers are the real hackers.

Radio is a means of exploiting a scarce resource to maximise profit.

It's quite rightly ego-driven. If you don't think what you have to say is important - why would you want a microphone?

It's about reinforcing cultural and community values through music and conversation. Communities of interest, and communities of place.

And it's fun. It's a cool thing to do.

So, there are these six valid reasons to broadcast. Everyone's reason is some combination of those factors. Fine and good. CanWest's reasons are heavily weighted in the commerce camp. Planet FM is mostly over on the community side... but the other aspects always come into play in some form or another.

However, there are external influences that impact upon broadcasting itself that can - and should - tip the balance. Here's what I consider to be the most important one:

You own the radio
The broadcast spectrum is a public resource. You own it. No matter who the radio station is, they're having fun, making money, building technical marvels, performing in public and making their art - using something that you and I own.

That includes the guard band.

Setting up and running a radio station is not a natural right, and is contingent on meeting the criteria laid down by the elected representatives of the citizens of New Zealand. You and me.

We have commercial radio outfits in New Zealand already. Lots of them. Or - just a couple, depending on how you look at it. But they have had to pay large sums of money to the New Zealand people in order to lease those frequencies (lease - not buy). In that respect, there's an element of public good going on, despite whatever you think of what's being broadcast.

No matter how much an audience enjoys a programme, and no matter how much of a market or a need for a particular type of radio station can be established, the fact remains that if you set up a commercial radio station, then you are in the business of selling an audience to a bunch of advertisers. Your programme is not the product - it's the bait.

Unfortunately, there's not much going on in the way of medium power transmissions in the New Zealand radio media landscape.

As a result, there are corporate giants, microbroadcasters... and the exceptions, which are usually tied up in some public good or another. Access radio. Student radio. Iwi radio. Whether or not they're commercial entities, their purpose is essentially to benefit the citizenry they represent.

And so, off to one side (well, two actually) we have ended up with a largely commercialised and competitive guard band.

The one place that should be a haven for alternative voices, under-represented sectors of the community - or simply a home for people to have their say and be heard, and for musical genres that are inaccessible elsewhere - is on its way to becoming a little shopping mall instead of a public park.

While it's great that local artists and DJs are getting the opportunity to be heard, the guard band should not be a place where franchises are born, advertisers prioritised and audiences commodified.

That's not to say that smaller commercial operators shouldn't exist. There should be spectrum allocated for smaller, low power commercial radio stations that don't network, but that can compete for the advertising dollar. And they should bid for the affordable little commercial frequencies at auction. Trouble is - there's just nothing like that.

Public park broadcasting
The last two commercial Auckland frequencies went for more than $6m. Prohibitive stuff for most of us.

No other sector works like that. Allowing McDonalds to operate in New Zealand hasn't made it so that Burger Wisconsin can't exist. Smaller players should have legitimate access to the marketplace. But - there also are places neither of them can build outlets, and where people like you and me can take a picnic basket.

The guardband - with its 500mW operators - should not be a free platform for profiteering. It should be our public park.

It should also be actively monitored. It should be an impossibility for an LPFM broadcaster to transmit above their legally prescribed limit without penalty. Spectrum Management should have real teeth. I don't really want a burger stand where my picnic table used to be.

The LPFM Register
There should be a registration procedure. Spectrum Management need not manage spectrum rights in the low power FM band. They don't want to, and I don't blame them. However, it should be done.

Just like internet domain registration, that can be run as a for-profit competitive system that maintains a central registry of all LPFM broadcasters. Or - it can be an LPFM users group. One that encourages rather than discourages diversity in on-air presence. One that acts in the interests of all LPFMers and would-be LPFMers.

So... want to start an FM station? Register it.

If: a) it's registered; b) you don't go for more than a week without a signal; and c) you don't break the limits of your power output restriction - then you get to keep broadcasting.

If I was re-writing the Broadcasting Act from scratch, I'd throw in d) you also must be a non-profit organisation - but since there's nowhere else for the small commercial guys to go, we're not going to get those worms back in the can.

If no frequency is available in the area you want to broadcast, register another one somewhere else, or go back to the drawing board. Don't just start broadcasting and hope nobody minds all the interference.

Yippi-ki-aye
Finally, I'd add a rule about forming power blocks, collusion and edging people out. That's not what's gone on with the Auckland CBD LPFM debacle - but we seem to have taken steps in that general direction.

All in an above-board sort of fashion, three of the LPFM stations share floor space and resources, and the curve-ball out-of-nowhere new guy happens to be good friends with a director of one of those three.

They quite openly (and legitimately) went out in the rain to get the transmitter up and running before Up FM could get in there.

LPFM is a first-in, first-served system. Wild west stuff. Plant a flag, make a claim - and it's yours. Go off air for a minute, and you could lose it. Nothing you can do about it.

The makings of a power block is already there - and I suspect that while it might be entirely benevolent, the natural reaction will be the formation of a competing power block - and we'll end up with factions. Much like the large FM commercial stations.

A radio station is not a radio station
And here's the problem. Jarra, who bought Up from George FM, thinks he's trying to move his radio station from one place to another spot on the band.

In fact, under the rules, unless he has a signal that meets all the criteria, he doesn't have a radio station at all. He's looking to start one.

Jarra's not trying to move Up - he's trying to start a new radio station with the same name, logo, staff and format. And there's not a lot of room. It's unfortunate, and it should be entirely avoidable - but under the rules that exist, he's bought a nightmare.

Likewise, Base FM is not a new station. It's just Up FM with new people driving the bus, a new name and logo, and completely different music. They're the same radio station as far as the law goes, because (and this is the important bit) the frequency is the entire legal standing of the station. There is nothing outside of signal transmission on a frequency.

Promises to clients, printed stationery, DJ rosters - all these things mean nothing in the context of the LPFM rules issued by the Ministry.

So - registration and the enforcement of technical restrictions would make these grey areas less grey.

Meanwhile, I guess we just try and make it work - and I'll quietly lament the fact that the entirety of the CBD guard band is largely made up of dance stations.

And I'll sure as hell be insisting that everyone stick to the letter of the law on the power output thing, or I'll be going to the MED myself.

LPFM is cool
Tell you what, though - through all this, I've discovered I like some of these little stations quite a lot.

Up and Twisted aren't exactly my cup of oonst, but I can see the appeal - and the gap (though splitting the audience in two seems counter-intuitive). LPFM radio stations should alienate large sectors of the population. Especially middle-aged, middle-class white guys like me.

I'm already a fan of Base (still waiting for the website guys...), I love the community-focused idea of John Greet and Tame Iti's K FM (though I can't hear it from my Grafton pad), Julia seems like a great station (and a finely-honed machine), Fleet FM are wonderfully haphazard, chaotic and exciting, with patches of brilliance and patches of truly awful - and are far and away my preferred business model for LPFM stations.

CBFM's not really my thing, but it's probably far more people's thing than my thing is (whatever my thing is).

And although I have a problem with the sheer number of Apna transmitters within the 25km radius laid out in the rules of the General User's Radio Licence, the point of what they're doing is thoroughly commendable and to be encouraged.

One final word for the Mulcher guys. We can't hear them in Auckland any more - they're in Hawera. But their site is far and away the most helpful for anyone who does want to set up their own radio station.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: everyone should have an LPFM radio station or two. Art, Commerce, Science, Community, Ego, Enjoyment - it's a full life.

But without registration and without enforcement of the regulations, it's a nasty, thorny wild-westy kind of existence, and it just ends up involving lawyers.