The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Low Power Radio

• Overview & Table of Contents
• What is LPFM?
• Congress Second Guesses its Expert Agency on Spectrum Allocation
• Low Power Radio: An Antidote to the Modern Radio Industry
• Demographics of Radio Station Ownership
• Participation in Employment by Minorities and Women
• Radio Consolidation and Homogenization
• Conclusion

Examples of Low Power Stations

• Success on the Dial
• Lost Opportunities 

Appendices

• Appendix A: Many Exciting New Stations Potentially on Low Power Radio 
• Appendix B: Third Adjacent, Second Adjacent – What does it all mean?

Low Power Radio: An Antidote to the Modern Radio Industry

The importance of low power radio is best understood in the context of the modern commercial radio industry. Radio is one of our oldest and most powerful means of mass communication. Radio listeners (93 percent of everyone over 12 years old, or more than 200 million people) spend on average 19 hours per week listening to the radio. 94 percent of African-American listeners spend 21 hours per week listening to the radio, and 95 percent of Hispanics spend an average of 22 hours.⁴ One indicator of the number of people who listen to the radio is the amount of money spent reaching them; in 2006, for example, the radio industry earned more than $20 billion in advertising revenue.

Next Section: Demographics of Radio Station Ownership

4. Creation of a Low Power Radio Service, Report and Order, 15 FCC Rcd at 2235-46 (2000).