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College radio began in the United States, where the FCC began issuing class D licenses for ten- watt stations in the 1960s to further the development of the then-new FM band. Most of these stations went on to get higher-class licenses, typically a few hundred watts. A few got several thousand watts, and a small handful got licenses in the range of tens of thousands.
By the late 1970s, FM had taken off, and competition for channels for new stations was intensifying. The National Association of BroadcastersThe National Association of Broadcasters NAB is the industry group representing the commercial radio stations and television stations of the United States. Numerous similar organizations exist in individual U. states, including GAB, the Georgia Associatio (NAB) and the newly-founded National Public RadioFor other meanings of NPR see NPR (disambiguation National Public Radio NPR is a private, not-for-profit corporation that sells programming to member radio stations; together they are a loosely organized public radio network in the United States. NPR was (NPR) convinced the FCC that the low-power stations were somehow a "detriment" to broadcastingNote: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video signals (programs) to a number of recipients ("listeners" or "viewers") that belong to a large group. This group may be the public in general, or, and class D licenses were no longer issued for applications made after 1979Events January-February January 1 Sino-American relations: United States and the People's Republic of China establish diplomatic relations January 4 State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of dead and injured in Kent State University shootings.. Making matters worse, the stations were demote d to a second-class statusStatus is a state, condition or situation. Status" often refers to social status. Status quo Establishment Conservative Status symbol., meaning that they would be forced off the air if any full-power station wanted their space.
Many stations were forced to upgradeIn computing, an upgrade is the process of replacing an older system with more recent hardware or software in order to bring the system up to date. Also Upgrade is the popular magazine about PC in Russia. their facilities at considerable expense to the students. Many other stations were eventually (and still continue to be) forced off the air, because they could not afford the upgrades at all, or not in time to avoid being locked-in by other expanding stations.
A very few stations have been added to the airwaves in very isolated cities with the return of the LPFM license to the U.S. The restrictions that Congress placed on LPFM stations as a result of the NAB's lobbying have seriously limited the effectiveness of this however.