What's it take to acquire/set up a radio station?

[SaltyNuts]

I would love to have my own radio station. Play all the good songs, not of the shiatty songs (Taylor Swift, stay the FLICK off my radio station!). Add in my own interesting philosophical thoughts people would love. What does it take to do this? How much $$$? And how hard generally? I assume I would need FAA or FCC or some kind of federal clearance or something. Can I just buy one that exists and start playing my stuff? Do I need to pay royalties to play music?

Thanks for any help.

 

[SearchMaster]

"Can I just buy one that exists and start playing my stuff?" - if you're insistent on doing an OTA broadcast, this is your best bet. But it'll cost you, as terrestrial radio is a dying breed. It'll cost you anywhere from, say, a quarter million to a couple million up front to buy a radio station. It would be cheaper to purchase air time on a local station, anywhere from $50/hour to $x000/month.

You can set up an Internet station pretty cheaply but if you're broadcasting music you'll have to pay for the music license (but you'd have to do this on terrestrial radio also, or even just to play commercial music in your business).

 

[sdifox]

Ever heard of smartphones?

 

[SaltyNuts]

Thanks SearchMaster! Definately want a "terresterial" radio station. $250k might be doable. After that I assume the costs to run it are very low? Other than the music license I mean. What does a music license run?

 

[IronWing]

Read up on low power community radio stations. Low power licenses are easier to get unless you live in a saturated market where all the freqs are allocated. Music licensing can be pretty cheap for this type of station as well.

 

[nakedfrog]

What kind of range do you need? If it's small enough you could just run a pirate station.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I looked into it some years back. It simply isn't worth the hassle and cost for the radius you get these days. You are looking at 5 miles or so unless you plan on spending a ton. That's why it's all conglomerate now.

Plus..people are moving away from radio. You would be better off to look into internet streaming. Reach more people..etc.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Thanks IronWing and nakedfrom. I dunno how much range, never thought much about it. I live in (well near) Houston, was just wanting a radio station that someone driving in/around Houston could tune into. Will a "low power" community station get me that?

 

[IronWing]

Thanks IronWing and nakedfrom. I dunno how much range, never thought much about it. I live in (well near) Houston, was just wanting a radio station that someone driving in/around Houston could tune into. Will a "low power" community station get me that?

A low power station will get you a few miles in a flat area like Houston, depending on the height of tower you put the antenna on. However, the Houghton airwaves are likely to be saturated so getting a new license isn't likely. You're back to buying an existing license.

 

[OutHouse]

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/how-to-apply


NOTICE: THE FCC IS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR NEW AM BROADCAST STATIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME.

NOTICE: THE FCC IS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR NEW FM COMMERCIAL STATIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Please buy one of the Houston stations that broadcasts in Spanish - do Americans a solid.
- Thanks care.

 

[SaltyNuts]

Dang, no new applications? That blows.

FeuerFrei, that's actually my idea now. Buy some crummy spanish station playing tejano music and start playing cool music and having interesting philosophical discussions. Maybe do cool interviews with MMA guys and gals. Like get Sage Northcutt in there, I think he lives close to Houston in Katy.

 

[sdifox]

Dang, no new applications? That blows.

FeuerFrei, that's actually my idea now. Buy some crummy spanish station playing tejano music and start playing cool music and having interesting philosophical discussions. Maybe do cool interviews with MMA guys and gals. Like get Sage Northcutt in there, I think he lives close to Houston in Katy.

Define cool interview with fighters of any discipline?

 

[Thebobo]

Pirate radio in North America

 

[KMFJD]

There's a lot of pirate radio here in the Dominican Republic, but they all play the same type of merengue music or bachata...

 

[Red Squirrel]

It would be very difficult. You can't just setup a playlist and broadcast it, because of IP laws. You need to buy licensing for every single song and that set you back quite a lot, probably a few thousand per song. Lesser known songs, probably less. That's why it's hard to find a radio station with a decent variety.

Then there is the red tape involved of actually setting up the tower, transmitter etc. Can just imagine all the regulations on that.

Though I imagine in a very small town you could probably set one up and bypass all the legal crap and no one will care if they actually want a new station. But it only takes one asshole to report it and it will ruin the rest of your life.

You could potentially launch a small satellite and have it transmit from there then you're out of any jurisdiction. As a courtesy I'd make it so it only transmits when it's in a certain GPS range (ex: your area). Turning off the transmitter would also give a chance for battery to charge during the rest of the orbit. I forget what the going rate is to piggy back on a planned SpaceX launch but from what I recall, it's actually something that is plausible to do. Especially if you don't care about the exact orbit.

 

[IronWing]

It would be very difficult. You can't just setup a playlist and broadcast it, because of IP laws. You need to buy licensing for every single song and that set you back quite a lot, probably a few thousand per song. Lesser known songs, probably less. That's why it's hard to find a radio station with a decent variety.

Small radio stations pay a flat monthly fee to BMI or ASCAP.

 

[Muse]

OK, since I've been a DJ since 1980 on college radio, I can speak to this. There are two ways to go:

FCC approved
Pirate

If you want to go FCC approved, you need a license to broadcast. Of course, you need the wherewithall to broadcast too. Buying an approved station is one way. That's expensive. It can be millions.

Starting a station is another possibility. You need FCC approval. In areas that are fairly saturated, that can be difficult and very complex. You likely need engineers to design the system including antenna radiation patterns to insure you don't step on other stations' frequencies.

You might want to do what I did, because your motivations look pretty much like mine. Find a station where you can DJ. My station (KALX, Berkeley, 90.7 FM and streaming) is a university owned radio station. However, the core of the personnel are community members. A good percentage at any one time are university students, and their turnover is higher than for community members because a student's life is more in flux. However, if you are into it and dedicated, you can remain on the staff. We do yearly fund raisers.

We have a huge library of around 115,000 items (LPs, CDs, 12", 10", 7" records each count as one item). As a DJ you can play anything that isn't prohibited by FCC rules including things in our library or material you bring in personally. Those rules used to be scant when I started, but nowadays are more stringent. Mostly it's about not playing songs with around 7 forbidden words. However, sometimes it's objectionable content (not often). A station can be fined, sometimes a whole lot, or worse could happen from the FCC.

The FCC has rules that have to be followed including EAS tests (emergency alert systems), logging, etc.

If you are a pirate, you don't have those rules but you might have to watch out for the authorities, possibly.

We log for around 1 week out of the year the writer of each song we play. The rest of the time we log artist/title/label for each song.

If you broadcast by satellite you don't have the same rules, you can play stuff that we are not supposed to play including the "bad" words.

For several years now, we have been streaming in several formats from our website. I think most college radio stations stream now as well, at least the bigger/better ones. You could start an internet-only station.

 

[Newbian]

Watch this movie to learn everything you need to do.

 

[Spacehead]

My station (KALX, Berkeley, 90.7 FM and streaming)

Not sure how i found it but i listen to that every now & again.

We have 2 low power stations around here. One is ultra right wing talk radio. The guy who owns it has fought with the FCC(or whatever agency) on & off for years but he's still on the air. Maybe they let him off because it is very low power, 2-3 mile radius at best.

The other one is not too far from my house. Not sure how they went about getting it up & running though. They play a wide variety of music though. I was under the impression they can play about anything they want. No idea about paying any royalties though. They started streaming about a year ago too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Speaking of radio, it's crazy the amount of stuff you can pick up on the AM band at night. From here I've gotten signals from as far as Chicago. Always neat to turn on a radio and see what I can pickup.

That's without any fancy antenna too. Skip propagation is an interesting thing.

 

[disappoint]

A low power station will get you a few miles in a flat area like Houston, depending on the height of tower you put the antenna on. However, the Houghton airwaves are likely to be saturated so getting a new license isn't likely. You're back to buying an existing license.

Is this how you pronounce Houston if you have buck teeth?

 

[IronWing]

Is this how you pronounce Houston if you have buck teeth?

No but I'd certainly rather live in Houghton than Houston. Or off Houghton, the name of a main thoroughfare in my fair city (oops).