[5] The Local Community Radio Act of 2009 also required that the FCC keep the rules that offer interference protection to third-adjacent channels that offer a radio reading service (the reading of newspapers, books or magazines for those who are blind or hearing impaired.

The Local Community Radio Act of 2010 (based upon legislation originally introduced in 2005) was signed into law by President Barack Obama on January 4, 2011 as Pub.

In a statement after the bill became law, Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski said, "Low power FM stations are small, but they make a giant contribution to local community programming.

This important law eliminates the unnecessary restrictions that kept these local stations off the air in cities and towns across the country."

A March 19, 2012, FTC ruling appears to address the concern that major corporations using "translator" stations as LPFMs, originating programming that could otherwise only have been heard on AM or on a proprietary digital radio system called HD Radio.

This use, disallowed by the FCC, could have circumvented caps intended to prevent excessive concentration of media ownership, and violates the noncommercial, localism, power, and height rules that other community LPFM stations must abide by.