Asheville’s Friends of Community Radio granted FCC license for FM broadcasting

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Friends of Community Radio, the parent organization of Asheville Free Media, has been granted an FCC license to broadcast on a low-power FM frequency. One of the group’s members, Jason Holland, announced the news this morning on Twitter.

It’s official. Asheville Free Media has acquired FCC broadcast licence. Will be broadcast on 103.3 FM

@Ashevegas Need to raise a little $ for the broadcast equipment. 100 watts from atop Aloft Indigo. Official press release to come.

@Ashevegas I’d guess the signal/footprint to be comparable to WRES. For comparison, WPVM was broadcasting at 5 watts from Busby Mtn.

@Ashevegas I’m about the 900th person in the list of people to be congratulated. Army of volunteers working very hard for years on this.

A little background, from an earlier press release:

Since the early months of 2009, volunteers have meet and worked to create a platform for local voices, and we now feature 41 weekly, locally-produced programs. The support of our community, underwriters, and listeners have made this possible, and we look forward to the possibility of expanding our service.

I’ve been covering the group since 2009, when it got formed following controversy surrounding controversy at WPVM, the radio station of the Mountain Area Information Network. Read my July 2009 story for Mountain Xpress about the creation of Asheville FM.