In my experience the “Clear Channel” radio stations(With huge money backing) always have from like 101.1-107.9 and the “niche religious stations” are always in the 89.1-92.1 area.
Is there a reason for this as far as bandwith goes or price to broadcast?
In: Economics
In the US 88.1 through 91.9 are reserved by the FCC for non-commercial educational broadcasters.
Non-profits (like churches), schools, NPR stations and stuff like that.
If you’d like to know more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-commercial_educational_station
The 88.1 – 91.9 frequency range is reserved for non-commercial radio stations in the US. These are usually low powered stations that are self funded, and the main entities willing to self fund such a station are religious in nature. The 92.X frequency band is available for commercial radio stations but can act as an overflow when there are too many non-commercial stations in an area to fit in the 88.1 – 91.9 band.
>Is there a reason for this as far as bandwith goes or price to broadcast?
Nothing to do with price. Governments assign different frequencies to different uses. That’s why your WiFi doesn’t interfere with your GPS and your garage door opener doesn’t scramble aircraft radar.
Public interest radio has been assigned one band of frequencies, and commercial radio has been assigned another.
In theory lower frequencies of electromagnetic radiation use less power to transmit the same distance (or travel the same distance for less power), but can’t carry as much information as higher frequencies.
In practice, the range of frequencies within which FM radio operates is too small for any meaningful difference in broadcast power, and the FM radio standard doesn’t really permit the additional data capacity of higher frequencies to be utilised. These standards, and the FM radio regulations of the local government, put all the stations on equal footing technically speaking. Any patterns you notice around which types of station content is allocated to which frequencies is more likely related to regulations and licensing, rather than any technical reason.
Do Americans still use FM?
I always thought the high dollar radio stations were in the “middle of the dial” because you had to pass them them changing radio stations when there was a dial and not buttons.
It was explained to me, when I worked at a radio station, that (and this is going back a long time, memory may be fuzzy) around about the time the US/FCC was deciding to reserve parts of FM this way (non-profit vs profit) that the for-profit broadcasters lobbied for it to be this way, and not the reverse (or something else). It meant that their stations (clustering in the middle) would be more likely to be hit and stopped upon by someone turning the dial while driving, looking for a good station. If your station is at the far end, there’s a good chance a listener will settle for something more mid-band before they get to you (or your station) from the other end. And, I guess, if average listeners know (explicitly or subconsciously) that below 92 is usually boring, they might not scroll the whole dial while they’re driving/listening. More money means more lobbyists and they got what they wanted. It’s the radio equivalent of your product being at eye-level in the store instead of at the very top or bottom, and businesses will pay for that.
Lots of misinformation here. The direct answer to your question can be found in the Code of Federal Regulations 47 CFR 73.501.
It says the first 20 channels in the FM broadcast band are reserved for non-commercial educational stations. The rest of the band can be assigned to commercial or non-commercial educational stations.
Differences in the cost of building and operating an FM broadcast station on lower or upper channels is insignificant. The cost of running a class C (100,000 Watt) station on channel 201 is not significantly different than operating it on channel 300. Likewise, building and operating an LP (100 Watt) anywhere in the band would cost about the same.
I am a professional engineer who has been building FM radio stations for over 30 years. I am involved in the design and construction of FM radio broadcast equipment.
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