Congress Considering More Low Power FM Stations

Skapare writes "According to this ReclaimTheMedia article, the Local Community Radio Act of 2007 (PDF) would remove the artificial restrictions imposed on LPFM by a 2000 law passed at the urging of corporate radio giants and NPR, claiming that small community stations would interfere with the signals of larger stations. If passed, this bill will pave the way for educational groups, nonprofits, unions, schools and local governments to launch new local radio stations across the country."

Comments

Re:Radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it is public property, not the property of mega corporations. They should have a right to use the airwaves for their small businesses or nonprofits without being part of the media cartels.

Re:Radio?

[westlake]

With other more cost-effective media like the internet, why would non-profits CARE about radio?

Ramsey Electronics will sell you a 50 watt LPFM Radio Station In A Box for $4000.

The price of a single high-end laptop. The non-profit may want to reach the audience that doesn't have dial-up service, much less WiFi or broadband cable: the poor, the elderly, the disabled, etc.

fox news reports

[fermion]

It annoys me that every time this issue is brought up, it has to have the fox news slant. The low power FM crisis is not only due to the lefts desire to have a single station that does not continuous play top 40 music, or contiuously droll on about how the alleged sins of certain people caused 9/11, or have five minute commercial blocks on how one can improve one sexual prowess with a natural supplement.

Before trying to create the truth by repeating a lie, get the facts. In my market, on the fm dial, we have 3 general college radio stations. We have one left radio station, and two other college stations that are leftish. We have 3 christian radio stations. The other 20+ stations are commercial, I believe mostly owned by two or three enitites. At times over the past couple years, one could find 2 pairs of stations playing the same content. I do not think these stats are atypical.

The overcrowding of the FM dial is real. There are times when, at least on an analog tuner, it is difficult to distinguish a single station. NPR is not, with it's single station, or at most two, in each market, crowding the dial. What is crowding the dial is the relaxation of the ownership rules. While the summery touched on this with putting corporate radio first, the summary also implied that the problem will be solved by simplying allowing the airwaves to become more crowded.

This will not solve the problem. And while Fox news is not going to state the obvious solution, I will. Limit ownership of bandwidth to one station per entity. If the FCC wants to a vibrant radio dial, review the rules set 10 years ago. There is not reason why a single entity should ever own more that a couple stations in any market. Period. If that means the commercials stations drop precipitately, so be it. There are evidently operators out there biting at the bit, angry that they cannot get a place to play. Ownership rules will open up that space.