A non-commercial educational station (NCE station) is a

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting 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 rad ...

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 earth's s ...

that does not accept on-air

advertisement Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

s ( TV ads or radio ads), as defined in the United States by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(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 va ...

fees for their

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

uses of the

radio spectrum The radio spectrum is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum with frequencies from 3 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 (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial broadcasting, commercial and public broadcasting. Community broadcasting, Community stations serve geographic communities and communities o ...

, 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 Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that distributes supporting funds provided by Congress to support public radio.

Reserved channels

On the FM broadcast band, the

(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), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

) 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'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

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 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 Mexico's

Federal Telecommunications Institute The Federal Telecommunications Institute (Spanish Language, Spanish: ''Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones''; abbreviated as IFT and incorrectly referred to as IFETEL, Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Snaul jtsob a’telelil Sk’asesojibal k’o ...

have such a reserved band. (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 Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship, for example. It was the United States' first model ...

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 auctions. Two such stations are WGPB FM in Rome, Georgia and WNGH-FM in

Chatsworth, Georgia Chatsworth is a city in and the county seat of Murray County, Georgia, Murray County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. It is part of the Dalton, Georgia, Dalton metropolitan area, Georgia, Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its populati ...

, former commercial stations purchased in 2007 and 2008 and operated by Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), serving the

mountains A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher ...

northwest of

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

which previously had no GPB radio service. In addition, there were at least four stations with commercial licenses that formerly operated as PBS member stations ( WNYC-TV in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, WMHX in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

, KAUT-TV in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

, and KCPQ-TV in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

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, 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 was enacted in 2010.

Definition of "commercial"

The FCC defines several different activities as being commercial in nature. Sponsorship of NCE stations is called underwriting, and stations may make announcements of these grants 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: m ...

for such mentions, only

goods and services Goods are items that are usually (but not always) tangible, such as pens or Apple, apples. Services are activities provided by other people, such as teachers or barbers. Taken together, it is the Production (economics), production, distributio ...

, unless the sponsor itself is a

, 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, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...

public college A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whether a national university is considered public varies from o ...

. 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 spots 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 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 commerc ...

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 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

, essentially making the station a common carrier. This may be for a commercial audio,

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

, or

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

service, or a non-commercial one like a radio reading service for the blind. NCE stations broadcasting in digital TV or

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcast, simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD R ...

may lease part of their bandwidth (actually bitrate) 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 done in order to fit the auxiliary service within the allowable

bit rate 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 ...

. NCE

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...

(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 product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

from these leases as commercial DTV stations do. No such

datacasting Datacasting (data broadcasting) is the transmission of data over a wide area using radio waves. It typically refers to supplemental information sent by television stations alongside digital terrestrial television (DTT) signals. However, datacas ...

fee is levied on any analog or FM/AM station, whether commercial or NCE.

References

External links

Commission Policy on the Noncommercial Nature of Educational Broadcasting
by the FCC {{DEFAULTSORT:Non-Commercial Educational Broadcasting Broadcast law Television terminology Educational broadcasting Non-commercial

Reserved channels

Definition of "commercial"

Multichannel obligations

See also

References

External links