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I'll put my cents in for University of Michigan's WCBN, who were another early net broadcaster, as well as being one of the older student-run college radio stations about (33 years on FM, and 53 years on air).

They also play ridiculously good music on their freeform blocks, and have some amazing specialty shows.

Geez.

You mean something like WCBN,WFMU, or WLUW? (OK, so FMU is in New York and LUW is in Chicago, but you get the point - college/indie stations can and do stream worldwide).

Let's say the government took back the airwaves and disbanded the FCC, and gave those airwaves to ISPs to provide wireless service (which is harder than it sounds, it's not like spectrum is unavailable for such things, and the spectrum for AM is totally unsuited to it anyway, while FM spectrum is non-optimal for the purpose, being relatively low-bandwidth). Let's say I then, being pissed off my FM radio no longer dragged anything in, built a 50,000W FM transmitter and started blasting punk rock out over those ISPs piddly point-to-point transmitters. Who would prevent me from doing that? The FCC... oh, wait, the FCC was disbanded!

The FCC still serves a purpose; regulating access to spectrum. Whether they're doing a good job of it is arguable, but getting rid of them entirely won't solve a damn thing. I'm sick of open spectrum zealots who don't know shit about RF and refuse to acknowledge the very real, very *math-based* problems with their proposals (like, for example, the capacity theorem saying AM bandwidth won't carry enough information to make it worth as much as your shriveled dick without using absurd signal-noise power ratios for mobile point to point stations). Learn some RF and info theory math, then come back and say "Let's open up the spectrum and everything will be dandy!" Look at how much 'free market' principles have fucked over the use of spectrum, and tell me an unregulated spectrum would be an improvement.

I can't stand commercial radio... are public/ college stations in the mix?

i am a student dj at the university of michigan - ann arbor's radio station, WCBN. we are one of the few freeform stations left in the country, and i would like to think that we are an important part of radio. we play music of all styles, genres, and themes - at any time, any dj can play anything s/he wants (as long as it doesn't swear during the daytime). we strive to expose our audience to new music. i am also one of the music directors of our station, and i make our playlists to report to cmj. but they are playlists in a loose sense - no one is required to play anything on our list.

more importantly, we provide locally produced news, public affairs, and sports programming, something that is completely lost with XM radio and national/worldwide broadcasts. i think XM is almost as bad as starbucks - it could show up everywhere, putting the few good stations left (WFMU in new york/jersey, for example) in a tight spot.

on the bright side, if XM is "the wave of the future," perhaps more schools and local organizations can take over the FM airwaves and return them to the people.

wcbn-fm in ann arbor is a freeform music station devoted to music of all styles and genres, from all time periods. you can find us on the web at wcbn.org, and you can listen via a variety of formats.

tune in at any time of the day and you're liable to hear any kind of music. if you don't like what you hear, come back in an hour and you'll likely hear something completely different.

music dept. playlists are archived online and are a good place to learn about new music.

we tend to feature independent artists, but will play just about anything. our top five for 2002 included neko case, mum, richard youngs, julie doiron and merzbow.

also, for more on the indie/electronic scene, check out <a href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com">pitchfork media</a>.

Educational stations (eg WCBN) that stream their over-the-air broadcast would have been negatively affected by the passage of this bill. Hopefully, language will be added to give them a break even if they don't get a free ride. See: Save our streams

Radio stations would use the same or a similar service.

No, they wouldn't. Here's why.

Option A: You are a commercial radio station. You play something on the order of (12 songs per hour * 24 hours * 7 days) 2016 songs per week. Just for fun, we'll assume there are actually that many different songs on your playlist. For most commercial stations, this isn't true. Guess what? You already have every single one of these songs, on CD, for free. Because the record labels send them to you, so you can play them. So, commercial stations will have no interest in this, because their songs are programmed in advance.

Option B: You are a non-commercial station, like (shameless plugging alert) WFMU, WCBN, or WFHB. You probably would want something of this sort. However, these stations tend to have an extensive library of older titles, as well as the new CDs labels send them. The only things they would tend to look for are obscure old releases they don't have, and new releases they haven't received. Speaking as a DJ at WCBN (hence the shameless portion of above plug,) I find 95% of what I want to play in my collection or the station's library. Although I wouldn't mind a similar service's availability, it's not necessary, and likely would not be worth it as a pay service.