LPFM.us Annual Inventory

At the end of the year, REC goes through our annual ritual called the LPFM Station Inventory.  During Inventory, we search for all 2,000+ LPFM stations on the internet.  The outcome of this search is shown on LPFM.US: The Official LPFM Directory and is used internally within REC for regulatory advocacy purposes.

Representatives of LPFM stations can submit their listing information any time of the year by visiting our LPFM.us Update Page.

What we look for

In our process, we first review the information that we have on file to assure that it is still current. We will look at websites, Facebook and Twitter pages.

If we do not have this information or if the information is outdated, we then search Google for the station by call letters, frequency and city and the name of the licensee.  We may also search for the station at TuneIn.

We do not use information from other listing services or stream aggregators such as Streema, Radiostation.net, RadioLineup, Radio Locator, etc.  

Any observations made during the search will be posted in the Comments field that can be viewed by looking at individual listings at LPFM.us.  Comments starting with a 2 digit year ("22") are those that were made during inventory. 

Active Stations

Active stations are those that we can find some kind of interenet presence and that there is evidence that the station is currently active.  This could include recent Facebook posts by the station and recent posts on the station's website. A working stream will add weight to the active status of a station. 

Likely Active Stations

Stations that have previous data in LPFM.us that were not able to find any recent activity such as website that is inactive, no recent Facebook or Twitter posts or other posts or articles that could suggest that the station may not be active.  The status of any live stream will have some weight on this determination.   

Stations that are reported as potentially active can be switched to Active status by filling out the LPFM.us Update Form. 

Featured Stations

Featured stations are those, that in the opinion of REC are stations that should be highlighted to the public.  There are several factors that influence our decision to place a station in featured status (not all inclusive and can be subjective):

• Stations that are true community stations, making a difference in their local communities.
• Stations that provide a programming format that are unique to American radio.
• Stations that participate in the support, improvement and defense of the LPFM service through participation in public forums and in regulatory proceedings.
• Stations that maintain a relationship with REC Networks.

Randomly selected featured stations are shown on the main landing pages of LPFM.us and RECnet.com.  

National Satellite Networks

REC recognizes that there are LPFM stations that were set up for the sole purpose of carrying a national satellite radio network, mainly as a result of campaigns by Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist organizations.  These stations may carry a small amount of local "opt out" programming but a majority of their program schedule is from one or more national satellite networks.  While this type of operation was never the true intention of the creation of LPFM, we can't deny the existence of these stations.  Many of these stations have no other presence on the internet (other than the network's affilliate list), but in all fairness, we still search for the station using the methods shown above.  If we find anything, we will add it. 

REC also uses the affilliate lists from these networks to determine this classification, even if no other information about the station is found.

Limited Information

If we are not able to find any direct information about the station (station website, Facebook page, Twitter account, etc.), including cases where stations with previous information have completely disappeared, we must classify the station as such.  

IF WE CAN'T FIND YOU... WE CAN'T LIST YOU!!!!!

REC Segments

In order to track the diversity in organizations that operate stations, REC uses a code for each station derived from the REC 6 Segments of LPFM.  With some exceptions this segment is based on the licensee organization and not necessarily on the format of the station.  In some cases, the "sub-segment" may reflect the station's format (such as a faith-based organization operating a format with secular appeal or a satellite network). 

Comments

In the comments section, we will list some observations that we see either during the inventory or when a station proactively submits their information.  Some of the notes you may see in those comments include: