Three Oaks, MI
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What made Knowlton’s show possible was the Low Power Radio Act of 2000, part of an effort to undo some of the damage done by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which sparked a wave of consolidation that continues to this day. Over six months in 2000, during five five-day periods, each for a different region, the FCC allowed community groups to apply for licenses for noncommercial radio stations of 100 watts or less. There was only 30 days’ notice for each window, and most of the licenses went to church groups that were already organized and ready to go.
Former Loyola University communications professor and New Buffalo resident Lee Artz learned about the FCC initiative in June 2000 at a media conference in Maine. “It happened to be at the very time they were opening the window for the second group of states,” he says, which included Michigan. Earlier that year he’d helped found the Harbor Country Forum, an organization that invited residents to discuss local issues, and a radio station seemed a perfect fit. The HCF and other community groups applied for a handful of licenses in southwest Michigan’s Harbor Country region, just over the Indiana border, which includes Three Oaks, New Buffalo, Union Pier, Lakeside, Grand Beach, Michiana, Harbert, and Sawyer. “We had the pretty grand idea of not only doing it for Three Oaks but for all of the neighboring communities, having one central studio and putting up antennas or towers” in every town, says HCF cofounder Jon Vickers, owner of the art house cinema in Three Oaks. After applying, they heard nothing.
“It’s one of the best examples we’ve seen of a community coming together to build an LPFM station,” says Hannah Sassaman of the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project, an LPFM advocacy group and clearinghouse. She says some 675 LPFM stations have started up since the FCC application windows closed, and just over 100 more are still in the works. Current House and Senate bills call for expansion of the act to include more stations–Sassaman says there’s room on the spectrum for thousands of them.
Knowlton and Ashcraft have become local celebrities. They were recently invited to emcee an auction when the auctioneer didn’t show up. “The lady in charge called when we were on the air and asked if we could come when we were done,” Knowlton says. When they go to events like these, she says, they wear “these outfits–my husband calls them costumes–that are black jackets with ‘Dial-a-Deal’ in pink on the back of them.” The two get accosted in public places. “I can go to Speedway,” Knowlton says, “and people say, ‘Oh, I listened to your show on Saturday’ or ‘I love your music.’”
