Community radio stations may be found in isolated hamlets and major cities. They may feature highly eclectic programming or be geared to serving one community exclusively. In spite of their differences, community stations have several qualities in common: they are governed by the communities they serve; they provide a sounding board for local politics and culture; and they are committed to reaching groups, particularly women and minorities, overlooked by other broadcasters. Community radio stations. follow the Pacifica Foundation's practices of volunteer programming and listener sponsorship. Like the Pacifica stations, community stations often feature eclectic music and politically activist news and public-affairs programming. However, these stations tend to be smaller and less structured than Pacifica's high-profile stations. In addition, community stations are locally governed, whereas the licenses of Pacifica stations are held by a central board of directors.

     Community radio's history began in 1962 when a former Pacifica KPFA station volunteer, Lorenzo Milam, founded KRAB-FM in Seattle, Washington. Whereas Pacifica was somewhat staid, with a more or less paternalistic approach to programming at the time, Milam embraced the then unheard of notion that radio stations should be run by the listeners themselves. Milam was a man of some financial means, and he eagerly committed his resources to his vision of a truly "public" radio system. In 1968 Milam and his partner, Jeremy Lansman, founded KBOO in Portland, Oregon, and KDNA in St. Louis, Missouri. Following a series of conflicts between the station's primarily white management and the African-American community, Milam and Lansman sold KDNA to a commercial firm in 1973 for more than $i million. They used the sale's proceeds to fund 14 community stations around the country in the early 1970s.

     The whimsy of Milam's and Lansman's intentions is reflected in the call letters for stations in what they termed the "KRAB Nebula": WORT in Madison, Wisconsin; WDNA in Miami; KOTO in Telluride, Colorado; WAIF in Cincinnati, Ohio; and KCHU ("the wettest spot on the dial") in Dallas, Texas. During the mid-197os, a community station's typical broadcast day might consist of

...  music from India blended with readings from esoteric magazines, blues and jazz from very old or very new recordings and the '50s rock and roll antics of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell On You," followed by a rare classical recording by Enrico Caruso. Later in the week [listeners] may have turned to a feminist talk program, a program for the gay community ... a 12-tone music program, poetry, a noon-hour interview with a flamenco guitarist, music of the Caribbean, news from the Reuters wire service and tapes of speeches by political activists of the '6os. Programs wouldn't necessarily appear at the right times, some announcers had difficulty pronouncing the titles of the works they were introducing, microphones wouldn't always be opened in time to allow a speaker to be heard, and. much laughter was heard (Routt, et al., 1978).

     Community conflicts at KCHU in Dallas led to Milam's withdrawal from the community radio movement. KCHU signed off the air on 1 September 1977, the first community station to cease broadcasting since KPFA's temporary sign-off in 1950.

     Nevertheless, the community radio movement continued to grow. In 1975 the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) was founded in Washington, D.C., as a professional support and advocacy group by 25 community stations. The community radio movement gradually moved beyond its counter-cultural past to embrace an array of minority-controlled stations serving Native American, Hispanic, and African-American communities. By the late 1990s the NFCB counted 140 member stations around the country. Of these stations, 46 percent are minority operated, and 41 percent serve rural communities. At the same time, many community radio stations in major metropolitan areas face the "mission versus audience" dilemma that plagues the public radio system. Do these stations stay true to their original mission of serving a variety of small audiences, or do they focus on capturing a single, larger, and more affluent audience? To ensure their financial survival, some large-market community radio stations have followed their Pacifica counterparts in abandoning their traditional, freewheeling eclecticism in favor of more homogeneous programming designed to attract "marketable" audiences.

     At these and other community radio stations, debates over policy, programming, and funding are commonplace. Because of the strong ideological commitment of their participants, relations between volunteers (as well as between volunteers and staffers) may be emotionally charged and highly fractious. Democracy has never been noted for its efficiency, and, at times, dominant factions within community radio stations have adopted authoritarian models of leadership that are the antithesis of community broadcasting. Yet, despite a chronic lack of funds and occasional internecine conflicts, community radio stations continue to erase the line between broadcasters and listeners. Their accessibility, as well as the range of their programming, makes community radio in the eyes of many people the closest approximation to the ideal of "public" broadcasting in the United States.