It appears there may be some movement in D.C. on some sort of legislation involving low power FM radio stations. It’s a curious thing: Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) plans to sponsor a bill to upgrade several old “Class D” FM educational stations.
The move stems from a controversy involving a high school whose 25-year old station might be bumped off the air by a commercial station who wants to move its transmitter to reach a larger audience.
While the FCC phased out Class D educational FM licenses in 1980, several dozen stations are still on the air. As part of the phase-out, they had to move out of the educational band of the FM dial (88.1-91.9 MHz). They also were endowed with “secondary” status: post-1980, if a commercial station wanted their frequency, the Class D station had to either find a new frequency or go off the air. Mercer Island High School’s station will probably have to shut down unless Sen. Cantwell’s legislation becomes law. Continue reading “Low Power Radio Legislation Afoot?”
Category: LPFM
Point/Counterpoint: Godcasting and its "Persecution"
Last week Paul @ Mediageek received an excitingly strained e-mail from Don Mills, the program director of Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls’ Calvary Satellite Network. CCTF/CSN is the largest single owner of translator stations in the United States. Paul’s been critical of Calvary Chapel in the past and Mills wrote to rebut the allegation that his network is actively trying to scarf up LPFM stations to add to its empire (CCTF/CSN currently owns or controls 300+ translators, has applied to construct another 300+, and has dozens of full-power FM affiliates).
While several applications for LPFM stations around the country have been tendered under shady circumstances by “Calvary Chapels,” Mills stressed that those Calvary Chapels are not associated with his operation.
Most notable, though, was the missive’s shifting tone. It began with an intimidatory “request for copies” of anything Mediageek has written or recorded about Calvary Chapel. Then, following a justification of CCTF/CSN’s existence and expansion, the man who controls 300+ radio stations remarked to the guy with a blog, “It just seems that you don’t like the fact that Christians have a voice on radio.” Continue reading “Point/Counterpoint: Godcasting and its "Persecution"”
Making Contact With Your Congresscritter
The Amherst Alliance is circulating 
this friendly reminder that with Representatives and Senators ostensibly home for a week-long break it might not be a bad idea to refresh their memories about pending efforts to expand community radio (both FM and AM).
Four years ago it was election-year shenanigans which allowed the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio to curtail LPFM by legislative fiat. With media issues generally enjoying a higher profile on Capitol Hill there may be an opportunity here – but LPFM/LPAM is now competing with other media interests and issues (like indecency) which have more political flair at the moment.
Radio World Asks Radio Industry to Acquiesce on LPFM
Check this editorial from the closest thing the industry has to a regular general news rag. Radio World was a cautiously supportive voice for LPFM when it was first introduced – but now the publication is firmly on board.
My favorite chunk(s):
“Radio…has become the poster child of what’s wrong with media consolidation…”
“We could do a lot worse than associate ourselves anew with small stations that broadcast for a few miles, offer unexpected and diverse on-air talent, and feature content of interest to their immediate neighborhoods. LPFMs are a lot closer to the ideals of radio as first conceived than most broadcasters probably care to admit.”
“The Communications Act of 1934 established radio’s philosophy of serving “the public interest, convenience and necessity.” Small, localized services are not a threat to that philosophy, rather they are a part of it.” Continue reading “Radio World Asks Radio Industry to Acquiesce on LPFM”
Scene Reports: California, Colorado, Oregon
California: Freak Radio Santa Cruz will lose its current station location at the end of April. The hunt is on for new space. The landlord is apparently clearing out the entire building for some sort of redevelopment project, which is a shame because he’s otherwise been cool about the station (to the point of facing down the FCC twice). Freak Radio’s no stranger to moving – at one stage the station was “homeless” and operated out of a bicycle cart – but it is never a fun experience and this space had been the station’s single longest home.
Berkeley Liberation Radio continues to hum along and recently overhauled its schedule. The station’s adopted a dues format for fundraising and made out okay at their benefit show last month. BLR’s Cap’n Fred lays down the bassline on one of our recent additions to the pirate music MP3 collection (Countdown and the Blastoffs’ “We Want the Airwaves“). Continue reading “Scene Reports: California, Colorado, Oregon”
radio free brattleboro Wins Symbolic Community Endorsement; Gilligan Goes LPFM
Voters in Brattleboro, VT went to the polls on March 2 and by a margin of nearly two to one voted to support their microradio station in its struggle for “official legitimacy.”
For what it’s worth, the local paper ended up endorsing the station, too. The court activity is still at the tentative stage, each side having filed papers asking a federal judge to shut the other up. Continue reading “radio free brattleboro Wins Symbolic Community Endorsement; Gilligan Goes LPFM”
Dutch Authorities Nearly Complete Free Radio Crackdown; Other Miscellany
Been a bit hectic between the last update and this one; this scattershot-ness will likely continue for the next month or so. The site itself still needs some work before it’s fully comfortable in its new home, so if you experience a hiccup in connectivity it’s just me f*cking around trying to set things right.
There have been several new reports of more pressure from the Dutch authorities on pirate stations in the Netherlands. For nearly a year Agentschap Telecom (the Dutch version of the FCC) has run “Project Etherflits,” a nationwide sweep designed to clear the band of extraneous signals so the government can finalize its sale of the broadcast spectrum to the highest bidder. The Zerobase Radio Frequency Policy, as currently written, does not contain provisions for community radio stations – only public and commercial outlets are to share the air. Continue reading “Dutch Authorities Nearly Complete Free Radio Crackdown; Other Miscellany”
Conflicting Signals on LPFM
A week and a half ago FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein hinted that the agency was preparing to move quickly on a report to Congress recommending fast expansion of the LPFM service. However, at the staff level the outlook is apparently much different. Recent correspondence between at least two LPFM applicants and the staff working on the processing of their applications suggests that plans to open up windows for 10-watt station applications have been suspended, perhaps indefinitely.
Another wrinkle in the service’s rollout involves the certification – or lack thereof – of some of the transmitters in use by LPFM stations. It seems that the FCC “gave incorrect information” to transmitter manufacturers about the process they would need to go through to have their LPFM transmitters certified acceptable for use by licensed stations. Just what the FCC’s error(s) was/were isn’t clear, but what it means is that some LPFM transmitters sold as “FCC certified” may not be. Continue reading “Conflicting Signals on LPFM”
Smokin' Klose
National Public Radio President/CEO Kevin Klose appeared on the UW-Madison campus today as part of a panel on the quality of the network’s coverage of Gulf War II. During Q-and-A, DIYmedia tried to get Klose to repent for his opposition to low power radio. The attempt was unsuccessful, but the excursion wasn’t a total loss….
Before the talk began, Klose was standing in the back of the auditorium speaking with various suits from the Wisconsin Public Radio system. There had to be at least 50 people in the auditorium, either suits or professors or students. I worked my way into the circle, and Klose stuck out his hand to shake mine: “Hi, I’m Kevin,” he said.
“I know,” was my response. “We met briefly in San Francisco in 2000, during an NPR board meeting there.”
Klose’s face briefly clouded over and he muttered, “Oh, you’re not one of those low power radio folks, are you?” I said I was; he mused out loud that he was happy the subject wasn’t on today’s agenda. Continue reading “Smokin' Klose”
Smokin' Klose: NPR Prez in Madison
National Public Radio President/CEO Kevin Klose was on the UW-Madison campus this morning as a guest of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He appeared on a panel at a public forum on “Accuracy, Fairness, and Balance” with regard to NPR’s coverage of the U.S. escapade in Iraq.
Klose didn’t say anything terribly remarkable about the practice of journalism and NPR’s role in truth-telling. He compared trying to cover the fighting in Iraq with “circling an intersection at a fender-bender” with the hope of reconstructing what actually happened. But Klose did exhort the undergraduates to stay engaged in the democratic process, and as journalists-to-be they should always strive to maximize the diversity of voices given play in the media. Continue reading “Smokin' Klose: NPR Prez in Madison”