"A 2003 FCC licensing window for new translator applications resulted in over 13,000 applications, most from religious broadcasters. Due to the number of licens

"A 2003 FCC licensing window for new translator applications resulted in over 13,000 applications, most from religious broadcasters. Due to the number of license applications, LPFM advocates called it the Great Translator Invasion." It isn't limited to religious programming but it the major component. Translators are really just re-broadcast mechanisms, and because of the various oversights in the regulations, the original signal does not have to be over the air or local, so networks can spawn off in parts of the band that were, in the spirit of things, intended for programming created by the same people the LPFM signal could reach: those in the nearby area. There's a long, long history of lower power stations and tons of inside baseball on the topic. Unfortunately, removing market caps in the nineties caused a wave of consolidation in the radio industry that swallowed up many local stations with higher power. The Great Translator Invasion similarly purged the local stations with lower power. Despite that consolidation and what you would think would be efficiencies of scale at the cost of programming from locals, many of the media companies that "borged up" the little guys have gone bankrupt. I won't pretend to know too much about all of this, I can only say that due to my contacts in the radio industry I have had multiple points of input giving me an overall negative opinion of how this has worked out over the years.