A Short History of Community Radio
The Early Days
From the time that regular radio broadcasting began around 1920, commercial stations have dominated US airwaves. Non-commercial broadcasting didn't really start until FM radio became technically and economically feasible after World War II. In the post-war years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided that the lower part of the FM band, from 88.1 FM to 91.9 FM, would be reserved for educational stations. While the commission probably meant for all of these frequencies to be given to schools, colleges, and universities, some visionaries saw the possibility of other kinds of stations.
The First Community Station
The first station that we would recognize as community radio was started on the West Coast by journalist Lewis Hill and a group of radio professionals, pacifists, and intellectuals. In 1946 they incorporated themselves as Pacifica Foundation and began working to make a radio station dedicated to "a lasting understanding between nations and between the individuals of all nations, creeds, and colors...[and] to...the full distribution of public information."
They were well aware of the control sponsors exercised over the programming of commercial stations. Instead, its listeners would support their station - an idea that was very radical in the 1940s. After three years of hard work and fundraising, KPFA signed onto the air in Berkeley, California, on April 15, 1949. It is still broadcasting as the world's oldest listener-sponsored radio station.
The Quiet Fifties
During the fifties, FM radio was mostly ignored by broadcasters. A number of college-based stations went on the air, and some commercial broadcasters picked up FM licenses so that they could rebroadcast the signals of their AM stations. Not much happened with community radio until the end of the decade, when the Pacifica Foundation put two more stations on the air, KPFK (Los Angeles) in 1959 and WBAI (New York) in 1960.
Picking up the Pace: 1960s and 70s
Finally, in the sixties, things started picking up. The early part of the decade saw the first real community station, KRAB in Seattle. While the early Pacifica stations would seem a bit stuffy today, KRAB established a sound and programming formula followed by dozens of community stations since then. Like WEFT, it was run mostly by volunteers. The station assumed that anyone could learn to do radio, and it allowed almost anyone to have a chance behind the microphone. KRAB played almost every kind of music imaginable, and gave airtime to people with extremely diverse points of view.
The seventies also saw a big growth in community radio. Community stations went on the air in almost every state. The counterculture nature of these stations was shown by their often silly call letters: WAIF, WORT, KBOO, WEVL, KGNU, KUSP, KZUM, and so on. Pacifica put new stations on the air in Houston and Washington, D.C., and started its national news service. The decade also saw the beginning of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, a group in which community stations joined together to lobby the government, exchange information, distribute programming, and generally advance the cause of community radio.
In 1979 the FCC began denying licenses to small powered radio stations. This change of policy excluded the general population from running a low powered station from a home, even though the equipment is easy to obtain and the airwaves technically belong to the people. In January of 2000, however, this regulation was overturned.
Community Radio's Growth Continues
Stations spring up in small communities and rural areas. Money from the Alaska pipeline helped fund community stations in many of that state's small towns and native communities. In the 90's, new stations were established to serve Native American communities in the lower 48 states (such as Sioux Nation's KILI in South Dakota and the Ojibwe Nation's WOJB in Wisconsin) and a network of stations were created to serve Chicano and Latino communities in the Southwest.