You bet, if somebody throws them a bone. A Free Press Media Geek article speculates on the possibility of “satellite LPFM.” Although professing opposition to the XM/Sirius merger on the simple grounds that such an act was prohibited at birth, the MG thinks that with a capacity set-aside for noncommercial interests, the merger might be a good idea. MG notes that even Clear Channel supports a 5% set-aside. With relatively low overhead – in particular, no need for an expensive physical plant, MG jumps right into speculating on possible formats for a channel or cluster of channels. The author sees no reason why the FCC can’t or won’t toss this provision into conditions of approval.
RBR/TVBR observation: That’s how it works. Grease some wheels here, spread some capacity largesse over there, wait for the conditional period to elapse and then start playing Monopoly. And for the various and sundry media, it’ll be just like when we were kids – a great big fight over the car.
