save low-power FM radio
Gary Ruskin
gary@essential.org
Tue, 11 Apr 2000 12:25:31 -0400
Commercial Alert April 11, 2000
-- Please call your House Member to save low-power FM radio.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on
legislation (HR 3439) to effectively block the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) from issuing rules to authorize low-power FM (LPFM)
radio stations.
Under the FCC plan, some community groups, churches and other
non-profit organizations would be allowed to set up small,
non-commercial FM radio stations.
These stations are a promising way to bring new voices to the radio,
strengthen democracy, enliven public discourse and enrich local
culture.
HR 3439 is being pushed by the National Association of Broadcasters,
which is afraid of competition on the radio dial.
The broadcasters say they are worried about interference these small
new stations would supposedly produce, and have been handing out a CD to
Members of Congress about this. The FCC issued a statement last month
that "Members of Congress have received misleading engineering
information about alleged interference from low power FM radio stations.
One particularly misleading disinformation effort involves a compact
disc being distributed by NAB that purports to demonstrate the type of
interference to existing radio stations that NAB claims will occur from
new low power FM radio stations. This CD demonstration is misleading and
is simply wrong."
<http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/News_Releases/2000/nret0005.html>
Please contact your House Member to oppose to HR 3439. The
Congressional switchboard phone is (202) 225-3121. To find the fax
numbers and e-mail addresses of Members of Congress, see
<http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html>.
Background:
Following is an editorial from the March 31 edition of The New York
Times.
Static Over Low-Powered Radio
A House committee, egged on by the nation's broadcasters, passed
regrettable legislation this week that would largely undermine the
Federal Communications Commission's plan to give schools, churches and
other community groups the right to set up low-powered FM radio
stations. These stations would broadcast local ball games, municipal
meetings or anything else they think their communities wanted to hear.
The idea is a good one. The commission wants to let non-commercial
groups cater to audiences living within a few miles of the radio
station, providing a powerful antidote to the increasing concentration
of radio broadcasters. In recent years the number of radio station
owners has fallen by about a fifth.
The broadcasters, including National Public Radio, do not like the
commission's plan for creating hundreds of competitors, each needing
only inexpensive equipment to give listeners local fare. The
broadcasters do not say they want to stop competition. Instead they
charge that the low-powered stations will interfere with existing
broadcast signals by creating hissing noises or worse. The broadcasters
filed a suit in federal court to stop the commission's plan and
distributed a compact disk on Capitol Hill that offered a
computer-simulated example of interference.
The commission says the evidence provided by the broadcasters is
bogus and a scare tactic to mislead politicians. Exhaustive engineering
studies and the experience of actual low-powered radio stations, the
commission says, prove that there will be minimal interference at worst.
The chairman, William Kennard, notes that the commission was careful to
keep the power of the new stations low and to space them far enough
apart on the broadcast spectrum. With these protections, he says, there
will be no significant interference.
If he is wrong and the signals of existing radio stations are
degraded, Mr. Kennard says, he will move in quickly to eliminate the
problems. To fulfill that promise the commission needs to require
low-powered stations that interfere with existing broadcasters to
eliminate the interference or shut down. Then the broadcasters would
have nothing to fear from the commission's plan other than healthy
competition from local groups who think they have something neighbors
want to hear.
------------------
Following are comments of Ralph Nader and Commercial Alert to the
Federal Communications Commission in support of noncommercial low-power
FM radio.
We urge the Commission to promulgate rules for noncommercial low-power
FM (LPFM) radio stations of up to 100 watts. It would be a modest but
important step toward a stronger democracy in America, more cohesive
communities, a renewed public discourse, hope for depressed inner city
neighborhoods, and a richer and more diverse culture. Such action fits
squarely within the Commission's statutory public interest mandate. It
is not often that a federal agency could achieve so much with so little.
We applaud the Commission for this rule making. We agree with its
stated goals: "to address unmet needs for community-oriented radio
broadcasting, foster opportunities for new radio broadcast ownership,
and promote additional diversity in radio voices and program services."
The goals are just right; there is a crying need for public space where
ideas, art and public discourse can flourish.
The public owns the airwaves, and radio must serve the ends and
purposes of the First Amendment: to protect public discourse, which is
essential to our form of self-government. Yet the hard fact remains: the
current regulatory regime for radio serves to thwart the First Amendment
rights and interests of most Americans. With the very limited exception
of talk radio, listeners are excluded on their own airwaves, while the
wealthy may speak through radio by controlling who uses their stations
and for what purposes. What good is freedom of speech if nobody can
afford it? Is speech truly free if only the wealthy can buy it?
The Commission's rule-making comes in the wake of narrowing
developments in radio broadcasting. These include the increased
concentration of radio ownership, and the prevalence of paid political
and commercial advertising (even on "public" radio). Let's look at them
briefly. They help explain why noncommercial low-power FM is so
important.
Diversity in radio station ownership is collapsing. The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 raised the number of radio outlets that
any single corporation may own in any market, which loosed a flood of
radio company mergers. The result has been that radio station ownership
has been concentrated in fewer hands. Chancellor Media Corp. is
purchasing CapStar Broadcasting Partners Inc. for $4.1 billion, giving
Chancellor about 465 radio stations. Now Chancellor wants to get even
larger. In June, Chancellor Chairman Thomas O. Hicks said that the
company would like "to grow our radio assets....There are a couple of
larger transactions we'd be interested in..." Another notable
combination was Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s $3.8 billion
acquisition of Jacor Communications Inc. This gave Clear Channel about
450 stations in the United States. (One woman complained about the
sameness of Cleveland radio, following the Chancellor and Clear Channel
deals: "It's as though McDonald's bought every restaurant in town and
all you could get was a Big Mac.")
The purpose of these corporate-owned radio stations is to maximize
profits -- not to enrich public discourse or culture. They do this by
corralling the largest possible audience, and then selling it to
advertisers. Market forces have not led to vibrant public discourse on
the radio, or a vigorous radio culture, or diverse programming, or
programming that protects and respects children and families. In fact,
they have brought the opposite.
In their quest for larger audiences, more advertising and greater
profits, commercial broadcasters cater to the basest standards, with
ever more blatant effusions of crassness, sex talk and nihilism.
Commercial rewards drive the creation, production and marketing of ever
more Howard Sterns, Greasemans, shock jocks and the rest. They
inevitably leads to a coarsening of our culture, which has particularly
harmful effects on children.
The early history of radio was filled with promise for democracy and
public service. At the First National Radio Conference in 1922, Herbert
Hoover, who was then Secretary of Commerce, said that it was
inconceivable that "we should allow so great a possibility for
service...to be drowned in advertising chatter...''
Hoover was prescient.
When we turn on the radio today, what we hear is mostly mercantile
values, commercialism and junk. Radio stations are cutting reporters
from their staffs and reducing local coverage. Shouldn't there be
choices, in a nation that purports to be based on the principle of
choice?
The citizenry is drowning in a sea of commercialism. Americans are
inundated by advertisements, junk mail, junk faxes, tv and radio ads,
telemarketing, billboards and more. There are ads in schools, beach
sand, airport lounges, doctors offices, hospitals, convenience stores,
floors of supermarkets, toilet stalls, on the Internet, and countless
other places. Advertisers even tried (but have not succeeded yet) to
put ads in space and on postage stamps. Tom Vanderbilt, author of The
Sneaker Book, writes of advertisers' efforts to "hang a jingle in front
of America's every waking moment."
Even "public" radio has become commercialized. National Public Radio
now carries many "underwriting messages" -- which are a form of
advertisement. Can't we have just a few spaces -- niches really -- that
are free from advertising -- sanctuaries, in effect? Is that too much
to ask?
There is a profound need in America today for public spaces in which
people can talk to one another. We don't need more advertising talking
at us. The Commission has a rare opportunity to use its authority over
the radio spectrum to help bring these public spaces into being, through
LPFM. It can open up the radio spectrum to the ideas, projects,
information, arguments, art and initiatives of citizens, grass-roots
organizations, foundations, associations, and religious and neighborhood
groups. So doing, it can enrich the public's understanding of civic
issues and social problems. It can set aside a small corner of the
public airwaves for civic educational programming to help citizens
discharge their civic responsibilities.
Micropower radio could help those people working to revive and empower
economically depressed areas, particularly inner cities and poor rural
areas. Community stations could provide valuable job training for youth,
who would learn how to operate radio equipment and manage radio
stations. It could provide new avenues for exposure for up-and-coming
artists, who may have a difficult time breaking into the "play lists" of
large commercial stations. This is especially hard with play lists and
even programming centrally produced in corporate offices. And LPFM
would provide forums for local residents to work at improving the
communities in which they live.
The best ownership structures for LPFM are unincorporated
not-for-profit associations, or 501(c)(3) charitable organizations.
Non-commercial radio holds, by far, the best promise for placing
thousands of new voices on the radio. It would have the freedom to
avoid the flattened, homogenized, canned, low quality programming so
widespread on commercial radio. Imagine the new voices that could
flourish on LPFM -- service and advocacy groups, universities, community
and civic organizations, ethnic groups, arts organizations and others.
This was part of the vision for radio during its early history in the
1920's.
It is not enough merely to authorize LPFM service. The Commission
should allocate more spectrum for low power radio broadcasting, and
introduce it when radio switches from analog to digital signals. If it
does so, then the new digital receivers will be designed to receive the
new frequencies. Media companies were freely given as much as $70
billion dollars worth of spectrum as a result of the Telecommunications
Act. Allocating some additional spectrum for future low power radio
broadcasting is the very least that the Commission can do.
By legalizing LPFM, the Commission will win greater popular support for
other public interest measures. Increasing support from grassroots
America can only help the Commission withstand the powerful influence of
the commercial media.
Nearly fifty years ago, the Commission declared that the main purpose
of broadcasting is "the development of an informed public opinion
through the dissemination of news and ideas concerning the vital public
issues of the day." Congress has given the Commission explicit statutory
authority to ensure that the public's airwaves are used to serve the
public interest.
We strongly urge the Commission to use its authority to establish
non-commercial LPFM stations -- to build a stronger democracy in
America, and serve a vision grander than the profit-driven
trivialization of the airwaves by most of the broadcasting and
advertising industries. The Commission was not intended to merely
protect the speech rights of broadcasters, advertisers and the wealthy.
We urge the Commission to uphold and protect the public's First
Amendment interests in radio, to rededicate radio to the service of
democracy in America. Non-commercial LPFM radio is one modest step
toward that goal.
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
Gary Ruskin
Director
Commercial Alert
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A
Washington, DC 20009
http://www.essential.org/alert/
gary@essential.org
phone: (202) 296-2787
fax: (202) 833-2406
July 12, 1999
--------------------------------------
For more information see Commercial Alert's web page on low-power FM
radio stations at <http://www.essential.org/alert/radio/index.html>.
The Federal Communications Commission's web page on low-power FM radio
is at <http://www.fcc.gov/mmb/prd/lpfm/>.
Commercial Alert opposes the excesses of commercialism, advertising and
marketing. Commercial Alert's web site is at
<http://www.essential.org/alert/>.
Commercial Alert's materials are distributed electronically via the
commercial-alert mailing list <commercial-alert@lists.essential.org>. To
subscribe to the commercial-alert mailing list, go to
<http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/commercial-alert> or send
the word "subscribe" to <alert@essential.org>.
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
--
---------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
http://www.essential.org/alert/ | mailto:gary@essential.org
--------------------------------------------------------------