Learning from the Field
These low power radio stories include successes and challenges in applying for and maintaining a low power radio station. Julia Perkins of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers describes her station's diverse audience and organizing potential, while Harry Kozlowski discusses how WCNH is filling a gap in cultural programming in Concord, New Hampshire. Sound Partners grantees have also added their lessons learned from successful media and community collaborations.
The Benton Foundation is interested in your story! The Benton Foundation is collecting case studies from low power radio stations across the country. Please send us a short description of how your LPFM station got off the ground, a successful partnership you have been engaged in, or a particularly fruitful fundraising effort. Email us at info@benton.org.
Low Power Radio Stories
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Julia Perkins describes the impact the low power radio station has had on her community. The new station has been used for mobilization and community organizing and as a way of engaging the youth of the community.
Arts Programming at WCNH
WCNH fills an important void in the community of Concord, New Hampshire, that of classical music programming. WCNH is supported through individual donations from community members and offers programming not found elsewhere in the area.
Radio at Culver-Stockton College
Used as a learning tool for the students at Culver-Stockton College, this low power radio station in Canton, MO, has partnered with the Chamber of Commerce to create an economic development plan for the rural town.
Health and Healing: Preventing Diabetes
Working with the Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center, Sound Partners grantee and low power station KCUW-LP Radio and Wisdom of the Elders are producing eight public radio segments and a comprehensive outreach strategy on diabetes intervention and prevention among the adult Native American population.
House Calls
Low power station and Sound Partners grantee KUYI-FM in partnership with the Institute for Health Professions Education is working with the elder population on the Hopi Reservation in Northeastern Arizona both as content producers and receivers around health related issues.
Promoting Health Careers
Working in a “medically underserved” area of West Virginia, WYRC-LP, a Sound Partners grantee and low power radio station, is working with the Center for Rural Health Development to promote health careers among area high school students.
Low Power FM: The People’s Choice
The United Church of Christ has produced an hour-long documentary describing how low power radio is “bringing diverse peoples closer together and giving new life to declining communities, new strength to neighborhoods and new voices in the marketplace of ideas.”
(Low) Power to the People
This Ford Foundation article details the radio “barn-raising” for the Southern Development Foundation in Louisiana and gives an excellent picture of the man-power needed to build a radio station. The article also discusses the history of low power radio.
Radio Free America
The American Prospect traces the development of the low power radio movement over the last few years and looks at the ways in which radio has helped organizations mobilize around particular issues. In addition, the LPFM movement has succeeded in uniting groups on the right and left around the common issue of community media ownership.
Radio Free Nashville
From the dreams of a few community members to a full-fledged broadcasting station, this story, from the Nashville Scene, deals with both the setbacks and triumphs of starting a LPFM station.
LPFM: Prometheus Unbound – The Sound Salvation
In this interview, Pete Tridish from Prometheus Radio and WPPR in Philadelphia discusses his experiences starting a pirate radio station and the ways he has begun to work inside the system to gain support for low power radio.
Radio Grandma
A grandmother to eleven, Nancy Pekerek has created a program reading children’s books on air—made possible by the low power radio station in her community. From finding funding for the program, to choosing books to be read on the air, Pekerek discusses the rewards of working in community radio.
Low Power, High Intensity
The Columbia Journalism Review discusses the history of low power or micro radio, its struggle for legitimacy, and the issues of encroachment that halted many LPFM applications originally submitted in 2000. The article discusses some LPFM success stories like KRBS-LP which operates out of an abandoned laundromat in downtown Oroville, California.
Community-Based Low Power FM: A Success Story
These stories from Prometheus Radio describe the successful low power barnraisings that have been held across the country.
At 5 years old, LPFM takes all comers
Over the past five years, LPFM stations have been serving their community by offering locally produced programming and information. This article describes the variety of ways low power stations have found funding and uses the success stories of two stations to describe the impact low power radio has had on two communities.
Partnership Stories
Creating True Dialogue in Community Radio
Lori Townsend of WOJB public radio discusses her approach to civic journalism and her organization’s partnership with the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Council, made possible by the Sound Partners program.
Partnership Engages Community in Life & Death Decision Making
KUAF and its community partner WRMC Hospice took on end of life issues with their Sound Partners project, learning through trial and error what makes a strong partnership.
Sound Partners Partnership Profiles
To see more examples of Sound Partners grantees and their planned projects, visit this searchable database of partnership profiles.
To see the stories of other low power stations, explore these web sites:
Davis, CA
Northampton, MA
Sherwood, MD
Muskeegon, MI
Butte, MT
Carrboro, NC
Dover, NH
Ruidoso, NM
Dallas, OR
Kilgore, TX
Spokane, WA
Waupaca, WI
Umatilla Indian Reservation
Write us at info@benton.org to add your station to this list.