A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radi ...
or
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...
that does not accept on-air
advertisements (
TV ads or
radio ad
In the United States, commercial radio stations make most of their revenue by selling airtime to be used for running radio advertisements. These advertisements are the result of a business or a service providing a valuable consideration, usually ...
s), as defined in the United States by the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) and was originally intended to offer educational programming as part, or whole, of its programming. NCE stations do not pay
broadcast license
A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary f ...
fees for their
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
uses of the
radio spectrum
The radio spectrum is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with frequencies from 0 Hz to 3,000 GHz (3 THz). Electromagnetic waves in this frequency range, called radio waves, are widely used in modern technology, particula ...
. Stations which are almost always operated as NCE include
public broadcasting
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
,
community radio
Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popula ...
, and
college radio, as well as many
religious broadcasting
Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...
stations.
Nearly all Non-Commercial radio stations derive their support from listener support, grants and endowments, such as the governmental entit
Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB) that distributes supporting funds provided by the congress to support Public Radio.
Reserved channels
On the
FM broadcast band, the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) has reserved the lowest 20 channels, 201~220 (88.1~91.9
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
) for NCE stations only. This is known as the reserved band, sometimes known by the term "left of the dial" (taken from the
Replacements' song of the same name), which refers to the
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
and other non-commercial stations that broadcast from those frequencies. It also includes channel 200 (87.9 MHz), but only for
class D NCE stations unable to find another frequency; the frequency has been unused for its intended purpose in the United States since
KSFH
KSFH was an American non-commercial educational FM radio station licensed to operate on 87.9 MHz with an effective radiated power of 10 watts. KSFH started as the radio station of Saint Francis High School at Mountain View, California. It ...
shut down in 2021.
Many of the reserved-band channels are used by stations bordering the United States, such as with
broadcasting in the San Diego/Tijuana metropolitan area. Additionally, neither the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission nor the
Federal Telecommunications Institute
The Federal Telecommunications Institute ( Spanish: ''Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones''; abbreviated as IFT and incorrectly referred to as IFETEL) is an independent government agency of Mexico charged with the regulation of telecommunicat ...
have such a reserved band in Canada nor Mexico, respectively. (In Mexico, individual stations belonging to state and federal governments, educational institutions, and non-profit groups are licensed under permits or ''permisos'', which are non-commercial, non-profit licenses that do not permit advertising. Canada, in practice, generally keeps most of the U.S. NCE band as noncommercial or with limited advertising based on each individual licence, but there are exceptions, such as
CIXL, a fully commercial station that operates on 91.7.)
NCE stations may also operate on a non-reserved channel. However this was rare in the United States due to the high cost of buying a
commercial broadcasting station, and because for years the FCC failed to maintain a process that would ensure that non-commercial applicants would have a chance against those who could afford to
bid at
spectrum auction
A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction form ...
s. Two such stations are
WGPB FM in
Rome, Georgia and
WNGH-FM
WNGH-FM (98.9 FM) is an NPR-member public radio station (via its radio network), licensed to Chatsworth, Georgia, United States. The station is currently owned by Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), which the station simulcasts all radio program ...
in
Chatsworth, Georgia
Chatsworth is a city in Murray County, Georgia, United States, specifically in the Dalton, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its population was 4,874 at the 2020 census. The city is the county seat of Murray County and the site of the coldes ...
, former commercial stations purchased in 2007 and 2008 and operated by
Georgia Public Broadcasting
Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) is a state network of PBS member television stations and NPR member radio stations serving the U.S. state of Georgia. It is operated by the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, an agency of the ...
(GPB), serving the
mountains northwest of
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
which previously had no GPB radio service. In addition, there were at least four stations with commercial licenses that formerly operated as
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
member stations (
WNYC-TV
WPXN-TV (channel 31) is a television station in New York City, airing programming from the Ion Television network. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E.W. Scripps Company, the station maintains offices on Seventh Avenue in ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
WMHX
WMHX (105.1 FM "Mix 105.1") is a commercial radio station licensed to Waunakee, Wisconsin and serving the Madison metropolitan area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. and broadcasts a hot adult contemporary radio format. From mid Novembe ...
in
Albany, New York
Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York C ...
,
KAUT-TV
KAUT-TV (channel 43) is an independent television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4). Both stations share studios in Oklahoma City's McCourry Heights ...
in
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
, and
KCPQ-TV in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
are a few examples of this); most of those stations now broadcast as affiliates of commercially owned networks. This is also rare in Mexico, though
XEIMT-TV
XEIMT-TDT, known as Canal 22, is a television station located in Mexico City. Broadcasting on channel 22, XEIMT is owned by Televisión Metropolitana, S.A. de C.V., and operated by the Secretariat of Culture. It is one of Mexico's principal pub ...
, a cultural channel in Mexico City, and
XEWH-TV, the main station of the state network of Sonora, operate under commercial concessions and not permits. A number of new low power FM (
LPFM) NCE stations operating in the non-reserved part of the spectrum have been licensed by the FCC since the
Local Community Radio Act
The Local Community Radio Act is an act of broadcast law in the United States, explicitly authorizing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to license local low-power broadcasting in the FM broadcast band (LPFM). After five years and fou ...
was enacted in 2010.
Definition of "commercial"
The FCC defines several different activities as being commercial in nature.
Sponsorship
Sponsoring something (or someone) is the act of supporting an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services. The individual or group that provides the support, similar to a benefactor, is k ...
of NCE stations is called
underwriting
Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liabili ...
, and stations may make
announcements of these
grant
Grant or Grants may refer to:
Places
*Grant County (disambiguation)
Australia
* Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia
United Kingdom
* Castle Grant
United States
* Grant, Alabama
* Grant, Inyo County, ...
s on-air. However, they may not accept
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...
for such mentions, only
goods and services
Goods are items that are usually (but not always) tangible, such as pens, physical books, salt, apples, and hats. Services are activities provided by other people, who include architects, suppliers, contractors, technologists, teachers, doc ...
, unless the sponsor itself is a
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
, such as a
charitable organization
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good).
The legal definition of a ...
or
public college
A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national universit ...
. Money can be accepted if there is no on-air mention of the sponsor. NCE stations may also not mention prices or qualities of commercial products or services in any situation which would be construed as
promoting or
endorsing any company, regardless of whether it sponsors the station.
Underwriting spot
An underwriting spot, known as sponsor credit ( ja, 提供クレジット, Teikyō kurejitto) in Japan, is an announcement made on public broadcasting outlets, especially in the United States, in exchange for funding. These spots usually men ...
s are brief and to-the-point, as they must not be disruptive to programming. Additionally, underwriting spots on public TV are at the beginning or end of the
TV show
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed bet ...
rather than in the middle, as they have increasingly become on commercial stations.
Retransmission consent
Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commer ...
has often been chosen over must-carry by the major commercial television networks. Under the present rules, a new agreement is negotiated every three years, and stations must choose must-carry or retransmission consent for each cable system they wish their signal to be carried on. Non-commercial stations (such as local PBS stations) may not seek retransmission consent and may only invoke
must-carry
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.
North America Canada
Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...
status.
Multichannel obligations
Like commercial stations, NCE stations are allowed to
lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
subcarriers in exchange for
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...
, essentially making the station a
common carrier
A common carrier in common law countries (corresponding to a public carrier in some civil law systems,Encyclopædia Britannica CD 2000 "Civil-law public carrier" from "carriage of goods" usually called simply a ''carrier'') is a person or compan ...
. This may be for a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
audio
Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to:
Sound
* Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound
*Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum
* Digital audio, representation of sou ...
,
video
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...
, or
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...
service, or a non-commercial one like a
radio reading service
A radio reading service or reading service for the blind is a public service of many universities, community groups and public radio stations, where a narrator reads books, newspapers and magazines aloud for the benefit of the blind and vision-imp ...
for the
blind.
NCE stations broadcasting in
digital TV
Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
or
HD Radio may lease part of their
bandwidth
Bandwidth commonly refers to:
* Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range
* Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
(actually
bitrate
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time.
The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction ...
) in a similar manner, however, the commercial use is limited. The main program must always be non-commercial, and must not have its quality diminished excessively by increased
lossy compression
In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
done in order to fit the auxiliary service within the allowable
bit rate. NCE
digital television
Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...
(DTV) stations do not pay the FCC a percentage of their
revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...
from these leases as commercial DTV stations do. No such
datacasting
Datacasting (data broadcasting) is the broadcasting of data over a wide area via radio waves. It most often refers to supplemental information sent by television stations along with digital terrestrial television (DTT), but may also be applied ...
fee is levied on any analog or FM/AM station, whether commercial or NCE.
See also
*
Educational television
References
External links
Commission Policy on the Noncommercial Nature of Educational Broadcastingby the FCC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Non-Commercial Educational
Broadcasting
Broadcast law
Television terminology
Educational broadcasting
Non-commercial