The Corporation for Public Broadcasting seeks proposals to conduct a study of digital radio interference – both existing and projected – in 75 radio markets around the country, including the top 50. According to the RFP announcement, “CPB is concerned with the disenfranchisement of listeners due to the loss of services public radio currently provides to them and the underperformance or lack of HD service…when the conversion of public radio stations to HD is complete.”
The document itself notes, “CPB has received reports that existing analog listeners have lost reception of their favorite public radio station when new HD signals have gone on the air.” Continue reading “Public Broadcasters Want Digital Interference Examined”
Month: May 2006
Radio Free Brattleboro Decision Analysis
The 12-page ruling that came down earlier this spring, forbidding the station from taking to the air ever again, was only written after U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha extended rfb and the FCC a chance to negotiate some sort of amicable settlement. rfb proposed powering down in exchange for the FCC giving Vermont Earthworks expedited consideration of its LPFM application. The FCC refused (though the organization was awarded the right to build WVEW-LP anyway) and went to another federal court for a warrant to raid the station.
With a settlement thus impossible, Murtha had to make a ruling. So he did, and it pretty much tracked with my initial suspicions. He noted that rfb was statutorily barred from receiving an LPFM license; he employed the “jurisdictional wiggle”* to sidestep and otherwise ignore rfb’s constitutional challenges to the FCC licensing regime. He also denied rfb’s call for sanctions against the FCC for double-dipping the legal system in order to take the station off the air. The station had been fairly warned that a raid might be in the cards, and there’s no rule that limits the number of enforcement tools the FCC can employ at any given time. In these respects the decision falls on the unremarkable pile. Continue reading “Radio Free Brattleboro Decision Analysis”
Unleashing Translators for Local Programming?
A small-town broadcast concern in Illinois has filed a petition for rulemaking with the FCC asking it to allow FM translator stations to originate local programming. The only substantive difference between a translator and an LPFM station is that the former can be up to two and a half times more powerful than the latter, though it is required to rebroadcast another source or station; LPFM stations are explicitly encouraged to be live and local.
The petition, filed by the Miller Media Group of Taylorville, IL, owner of seven full-power AM and FM stations, would allow FM translators to broadcast original programming from any point located within 25 miles of its transmitter. It notes the “thousands of FM translator stations authorized, and many more thousands of translator applications awaiting FCC action. [These] could be used for a variety of different programming but for the restrictive FM translator rules now in effect.” Continue reading “Unleashing Translators for Local Programming?”
DIYmedia in San Francisco
Just found out I’ll be making at least one presentation at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conference in San Francisco, August 2-5. I am not particularly comfortable in conference environments (especially academic ones), though Lawrence Lessig is keynoting, which should be cool.
Save for a day-trip a few years ago, I haven’t been to SF since the NAB Meets Media Democracy protests in 2000. This time around there’s friends actually living there. Maybe there’s a way to sneak in a station tour (or two) as well. Anything to avoid the schmooze.
LPAM Petition for Rulemaking Amended
Last October, a coalition of aspiring low-power AM broadcasters and citizens filed a petition for rulemaking at the FCC to create a licensed LPAM service. The comment and reply-comment period came and went, attracting a smattering of public input, including some predictable opposition from most established (commercial) broadcasters. The FCC’s done nothing with it since.
Rumor has it that FCC staff may be more inclined to explore the idea of legal LPAM were the petition streamlined to outline a technically and politically simple service to administer. Otherwise, went the rumor, “come back in a few years” to try again. Continue reading “LPAM Petition for Rulemaking Amended”