United States
U.S. community radio stations are usually staffed by volunteers and air a wide variety of programming. They generally have smaller budgets than National Public Radio (NPR) network outlets, due to the small audience of potential contributors and business donors. Community radio stations are distinct from NPR stations; most community-radio programming is locally produced by non-professional disc jockeys and producers (although a few have honed their skills well enough to launch professional radio careers), whereas NPR relies more on syndicated programming (from its own sources and other outlets, such as PRI. NPR stations almost always have paid staffs to handle most duties. Community stations often try, as a matter of principle, to reduce their dependence on financial contributions from corporations (and governments, in comparison with other public broadcasters).
Many community stations are licensed as full-power FM stations, while others (especially newer community stations founded after 2005) are licensed under low-power broadcasting rules. Many of the former were founded in the 1960s and 1970s when cultural experimentation (such as the New Left) in the U.S. had a significant following, particularly among the young. Some of the largest and best-known community radio stations are those owned by the non-profit Pacifica Foundation, including WBAI in New York; WPFW in Washington, D.C.; KPFA in Berkeley, California (which covers the San Francisco area) KPFK in Los Angeles and KPFT in Houston, TX (which also covers Huntsville, Goodrich, Livingston, and Galveston). Many community radio stations are affiliates of the Pacifica Radio Network.
The National Federation of Community Broadcasters was formed in 1975 as an umbrella organization for community-oriented, noncommercial radio stations. The NFCB publishes handbooks for stations and lobbies on behalf of community radio at the federal level. It has been criticized for encouraging the homogenization of community stations through its Healthy Station Project. The project encouraged stations to scale back volunteers' power over management and the content of their programs, as well as embrace more-predictable "strip" programming. The Grassroots Radio Coalition is a loose coalition of stations which formed as a reaction against increasing commercialization of public radio and lack of support for volunteer-based stations (including those belonging to the NFCB). Some stations are members of both groups.
In the U.S., community radio stations are non-profit, community-based operations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission for broadcasting in the non-commercial public portion of the FM band. These stations differ from other public radio outlets in the U.S. by allowing community volunteers to actively participate as broadcasters.
In 2012, environmental campaigner, Bill McKibben reported American public radio to be experiencing a revival, in part because of podcasting's popularity and because more young people were now seeing radio as 'cool'.
Read more about this topic: Community Radio, By Country
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