On June 28 the FCC voted to restart its project to revise its media ownership rules. The formal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to begin this process was released last week. The agency last tried to do this in 2003, but most of its proposed changes were blocked by court order in 2004.
The last time around was a near-disaster. Then-chairman Mikey Powell tried to ram through a christmas-load of changes that would have let large media conglomerates get much larger. The FCC tried to use hopelessly biased “research” to justify industry moguls’ wet dreams. Millions of people cried foul on the scheme, and it still took the courts to stop it. Continue reading “FCC Does Media Ownership Redux”
Category: Media Policy
NAB Seeks FM Translator-Grab for AM Stations
A very intriguing 
Petition for Rulemaking was recently filed by the National Association of Broadcasters. It asks the FCC to let the owners of AM stations apply for FM translators, so that they may rebroadcast their AM signals to provide better service, especially at night, when many AM stations must operate at reduced power or go off the air completely. NAB believes the FCC needs to give a much-needed “boost” to the lot of these beleaguered stations.
The FCC has considered and rejected this very notion twice in the last 25 years, but NAB thinks the third time is the charm because of new sources of interference to the AM band. What new sources? Computers and traffic signals are mentioned, but a footnote otherwise plugging digital radio casually drops the comment that AM broadcasters are “encountering ever more interference problems as a result of an increase in ambient noise.” Continue reading “NAB Seeks FM Translator-Grab for AM Stations”
FCC Punts on HD Rulemaking
Thursday’s Commission meeting was delayed by five hours; during the delay the agency revised the meeting agenda, announcing that the digital radio item had been pulled. No reason given, except, “it isn’t done.” One could say the same about the HD Radio protocol itself, but that’s not stopping radio’s major players from shoving it onto the air.
In related news: how much fresh content does digital radio multicasting really offer? Most HD-R side-channels run what is called a “hard clock,” meaning a set playlist with few or no updates. According to Mark Lapidus, “When they [reviewers of HD radio receivers] don’t discover the repetition, I figure that they just really haven’t listened very much. However, real listeners will catch on quickly as they hear the same song at the same time every day.” What kind of content diversity does one expect when the largest provider of HD multicast programming is Clear Channel?
FCC to Further Rubber-Stamp IBOC/HD Radio
The Federal Communications Commission’s monthly meeting goes down on Thursday, and the second-to-last item on its agenda is the adoption of a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the certification of “HD Radio,” the digital audio broadcast technology of-choice for the U.S. radio industry.
Though the HD Radio system has not yet been formally certified, a relatively vigorous campaign is underway to deploy it. Rush deployment before formal certification of a technology results in what is called “the creation of facts on the ground,” demonstrating the technology’s functionality and increasing the pressure on its regulator to approve its usage (since it’s already out in the wild, failing to certify it puts the regulator in the position of nullifying billions of dollars of investment). Continue reading “FCC to Further Rubber-Stamp IBOC/HD Radio”
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?”
NAB Finesses Lobbying Strategy
The boss who oversaw the National Association of Broadcasters’ evisceration of the FCC’s low-power FM radio service, Eddie Fritts, stepped aside as president last year, and considers the squelching of LPFM one of his greatest accomplishments. The new NAB chieftain is David K. Rehr, former chairman of the National Beer Wholesalers Association.
NAB President David Rehr, GOP Palm-Greaser ExtraordinaireWhen Rehr was selected to replace Fritts, the NAB pointed to his significant and unabashed lobbying and fundraising skills – Rehr made the NBWA political action fund one of the ten biggest spenders in Washington and currently doles out more than twice as much cash as does the NAB. Rehr was also a “Bush Pioneer” in 2004, raising more than $100,000 for his second campaign, and has extremely close ties to Republican congressional leadership and the K Street Project. Continue reading “NAB Finesses Lobbying Strategy”
Tracing Media Industry Sock-Puppetry
Last October, Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays proclaimed at a luncheon of the Progress & Freedom Foundation that his company was at a competitive disadvantage to satellite radio, comparing the ~150 nationwide channels each satellite service offers to the eight frequencies Clear Channel may occupy in a single market (lest we forget Clear Channel owns more than 1,200 stations nationwide). This, coupled with other whoppers, constituted a call for the FCC to relax its radio ownership rules. Specifically,
In markets with 60 stations or more, there is room to raise the local ownership cap from eight to ten stations. In markets with 75 stations or more, there is room to raise the local ownership cap from eight to twelve stations. Continue reading “Tracing Media Industry Sock-Puppetry”
Low Power AM Petition for Rulemaking Accepted at FCC
RM-11287 is a multi-party petition that calls for the opening of the AM band to small broadcasters. Two of the five parties involved also filed the original petition for rulemaking that led to LPFM’s conception.
This has been a long time coming: citizen interest in LPAM has percolated since the 1990s, and there’s been open discussion of the idea since at least 2002. In 2003 a respected broadcast engineer submitted a proposal to the FCC which called for the creation of 30 and 100-watt “neighborhood radio” AM stations with 1-5 mile broadcast ranges. The FCC never formally acknowledged receipt of this document. In 2004 efforts were made to revive the proposal, to no avail. Building on these previous efforts with copious field experimentation led to the petition the FCC finally accepted.
RM-11287 attempts to differentiate LPAM from LPFM in several respects. The most significant is its commercial nature: LPAM seeks to “fill the current gap between small stations and megacorporations…where mid-sized businesses used to be” in the broadcast industry. Petitioners contend that while LPFM addresses a “community coverage gap” opened by the consolidation of radio since 1996, “[t]here remains, in radio and in other mass media industries, a separate, but similarly dangerous, ‘small business gap'” which “harms the nation by hindering economic growth and also by limiting the free flow of information and ideas.” It is proposed that one entity may own up to 12 LPAM stations nationally, although no more than one in any given market.
Multiple options are presented for the technical requirements of an LPAM service, with power levels ranging from 1 to 250 watts. All are geared toward keeping administration of the service simple. It is believed that under such conditions LPAM stations may provide opportunities for access to the airwaves that LPFM simply cannot: for example, according to cited analysis from REC Networks, metropolitan Detroit is currently off-limits to LPFM, but as many as four possible LPAM frequencies exist in the city.
Some components of the petition, like asking the FCC to make licensing decisions between competing applicants based on their proposed broadcast content, will simply not fly. And given that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the FCC to auction off all commercial broadcast licenses, implementation of the proposal as written would require the blessing of Congress. But the fact that the FCC is at least open to a rudimentary level of discussion about LPAM is encouraging. Comments on RM-11287 are due in mid-November (on or around November 20).
Low Power AM Petition for Rulemaking Accepted at FCC
RM-11287 is a multi-party petition that calls for the opening of the AM band to small broadcasters. Two of the five parties involved also filed the original petition for rulemaking that led to LPFM’s conception.
This has been a long time coming: citizen interest in LPAM has percolated since the 1990s, and there’s been open discussion of the idea since at least 2002. In 2003 a respected broadcast engineer submitted a proposal to the FCC which called for the creation of 30 and 100-watt “neighborhood radio” AM stations with 1-5 mile broadcast ranges. The FCC never formally acknowledged receipt of this document. In 2004 efforts were made to revive the proposal, to no avail. Building on these previous efforts with copious field experimentation led to the petition the FCC finally accepted. Continue reading “Low Power AM Petition for Rulemaking Accepted at FCC”
LPFM Expansion Bill Introduced in House
Overlooked in the hurricane fury: this month Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) introduced the “Enhance and Protect Local Community Radio Act of 2005.” It’s a companion bill to Senator McCain and Leahy’s (R-AZ / D-VT) legislation, although it adds a substantial twist on the translator issue. Continue reading “LPFM Expansion Bill Introduced in House”