Sub Channel Radio, and Radyo Pa Nou

Sub Channel Radio, and Radyo Pa Nou.

Regulations work – when they regulate the other guy.

Toward the end of the 20th century, the FCC played with the idea of licensing very low powered radio stations to serve small town governments and local organizations as a way in which to encourage community participation and access to public issues.

Mainstream media (radio in particular) did not like the idea at all. They imagined that advertisers might support these efforts in ways that could threaten their own license monopolies – and they successfully quashed its growth through a strong lobbying effort designed to impose both complicated rules for access, and highly restrictive legislative regulations.

Years went by without much of a fight. But as ‘Pirate Radio’ (full power – illegal stations) began to appear and proliferate – and as the government had more and more trouble trying to find and eliminate such stations, Big Media decided it might be better to deal with the ‘controlled’ threat of local (what would become sub-channel radio), rather than the all out assault of full power – pirate - competition.

In other words, if you can’t beat them – and you can’t kill them – then control (and regulate) them.

The 21st Century advent (and explosion) of digital technology made this possible. And sub-channel radio (not to be confused with low power radio) came into existence as a way for very local radio to be made available to a very local community, while allowing mainstream media to control it – and to profit from it as well.

Today’s sub-channel stations are higher in power, but controlled by the owners of broadcast radio stations already holding FCC analog station licenses. In this way they are able to make money by sub-leasing the digital sub-spectrum to community radio stations, and at the same time limit the number of sub-channel broadcasters allowed.

But even though it now costs money to start such a station, sub-channel radio stations are turning up at an increasing rate, and are making money by serving very local (and targeted) markets, along with their attendant advertisers.

Radyo Pa Nou falls into this category of being a sub licensed, sub channel radio station. It has been serving the Haitian community living in the neighborhood of Flatbush, in Brooklyn, since 2006.

Sub channel radio is not available however, to the general public through conventional radios. It requires a special radio receiver in order to get its signal. This is because the signal is a digital division of an existing frequency, and requires a specially designed digital receiver to decode the technology.

Radio Pa Nou’s strategy has been to pretty much ‘give away’ (at almost no cost) these radios to any and all customers requesting them. These radios receive not only Radyo Pa Nu’s signal – but all digital sub channels (including competitor stations like Radio Tropical, and Radio Soliel) in the region.

While people may have been initially interested in listening to only one or another of the Haitian stations in their local area, by purchasing a radio from Pa Nu, they are now able to listen to them all. This makes the radios very attractive to residents throughout the entire New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area – where a large concentration of Haitian immigrants now live - and has had the added benefit of attracting additional revenue from regional advertisers, as opposed to advertisers located only in one of the local communities.

It is also true that small operations in general - like Radyo Pa Nou - are extremely flexible and quick to react to changing situations (unlike large corporate run operations), and are therefore also able to change their programming quickly to meet such changing situations. They become - if not the first source of information - certainly the continuing source of information for a local community. In fact, it might be said, that they are the local community.

Since its inception, Radyo Pa Nou has paid close attention to the needs of its community, as evidenced by its coverage and service to the community during the earthquake of 2010. Joseph Geffard (founder and CEO of the station) recognized right away that by building a large, local, and loyal audience, it could also build its revenue - and it has been very successful in doing both.