In
radio's infancy, we were promised community broadcasting--for
the people, by the people. But, the future looks dark as
the FCC changes hands, leaving the Free Radio Movement to fend
for itself against some unlikely allies: corporate
broadcasters and NPR.
The Truth About "Public" Radio
By Alita Edgar
(with additional reporting by David Hirschman)
April
6, 2001
Low power FM? Microbroadcasting?
Makes you think of pimply teenagers in their parents' basements, crouched over
cobbled-together transmitter parts, sending out a thin stream of opinion over
the quiet streets of the neighborhood. And you wouldn't be totally wrong-the
beauty of low power FM (LPFM, also known as microbroadcasting) is that anyone,
theoretically, can make his or her voice heard. Yet, while it can cost as little
as $1,000 to get all the equipment you need to start a microbroadcasting station,
getting a license to operate is far trickier. Currently, there are over 13,000
LPFM applications--ranging from conservative churches to Vietnamese community
groups in South Texas to ex-pirate punks--hanging in limbo as Congress and the
FCC quibble over who gets access to America's radio frequencies.
It wasn't always this way. For
years, small noncommercial groups such as libraries, churches, and community
organizations could apply for low-power broadcasting licenses, which would allow
them to operate simple, inexpensive local stations with maximum power levels
of 10 or 100 watts. After NPR and other broadcasters successfully lobbied the
FCC in 1978, citing a need to consolidate their audience, low power FM service
was banned.
Yet, now more than ever before,
America needs local programming. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated
radio, and one of the changes was the removal of restrictions on how many radio
stations one corporation could own. Large companies such as Chancellor Media,
Infinity Broadcasting, and Clear Channel Communications began snapping up stations.
Since the act passed, they have acquired nearly one-half of the approximately
12,000 stations in America. The result: a homogenizing effect in which local
programming is replaced by nationally syndicated content. WBAI, a Pacifica Network
station based on listener-supported independent programming, is a case in point.
The Pacifica national board has eliminated the local advisory boards' influence,
thereby silencing the community's concerns. Pacifica Network stations have suffered
mid-show executive interruptions and takeovers, and staff/board member lockouts
and even arrests, according to Freedom and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). As
well, there has been a huge increase in the ratio of advertising vs. content
minutes per hour.
These changes have not gone unnoticed.
In the past five years, the Free Radio Movement--a broad coalition of ethnic
language groups, media activists, city councils, and public safety groups--formed
to bring back low power FM. The Free Radio activists compare themselves to the
civil rights movement in their commitment to equal access and opportunities,
as well as their use of civil disobedience. In 1998, hundreds of microbroadcasters
demonstrated in support of LPFM outside the headquarters of the FCC. The FCC
subsequently vowed to reinstate LPFM.
The
Opposition: Unlikely Allies
The victory for the Free Radio Movement didn't last long. The National Association
of Broadcasters' (NAB), a trade organization representing the commercial broadcasters,
has been lobbying at full blast to get congressional injunctions to keep small-time
broadcasters off the air. They're not the only ones. Surprisingly, the National
Public Radio (NPR) network and even smaller, independent stations such as WFMU
91.1 are also protesting the reintroduction of LPFM. The joining of these strange
bedfellows, united in the struggle over LPFM, raises the question of what "public"
radio really is. Is it government-supported, highly structured, mostly national
programming à la NPR? Or should it hearken back to the former definition of
"public" as programming created by individuals or small groups in the manner
of public access television shows?
The main point of contention
for the NAB/NPR lobby is the possibility of interference between stations broadcasting
with only two frequencies of "buffer" separating them. The NAB, NPR and other
FM stations claim that cramming new LPFM stations into already-congested FM
bands could degrade service for millions of listeners
WFMU 90.1/91.1 of Jersey City,
one of the last stations in the nation that offers free-form programming, is
one such worried station. WMFU's station manager, Ken Freedman, believes that
a low power station opening up at 91.3 could obliterate WFMU's Jersey Shore
reception and cause problems with its reception in New York as well. The 91.3
station is a translator, meaning it repeats content from other stations instead
of programming original content. (Translators are technically the same as LPFM
stations, but the FCC regards them as network station extenders, rather than
separate new stations.) However, even Freedman is divided on the issue: "I'm
very mixed on LPFM. On the one hand I am helping several groups pursue LPFM
licenses. On the other hand, it has created many problems for WFMU." While it
may lose the battle over the airwaves,WFMUis now aggressively developing its online presence
in order to broadcast clearly to its listeners who have access to the Internet.
While low power FM may or may
not harm the signals of small stations, one thing seems certain: low power FM
does not pose a threat to large stations. As recently as March 2000, the FCC
reported that LPFM would not interfere with larger stations. According to astatement
issued by then-Chairman of the FCC William Kennard, "The idea of small 100-watt,
community based radio stations realistically causing engineering or competitive
threats to the large area-wide stations on the dial is implausible. It is often
the case that many industries--not just broadcasters--are traditionally against
any change and any competition to the status quo." As well, a study commissioned
by a consortium of LPFM advocates showed "only minimal interference," which
could be remedied with low cost filters. The NAB's claim is like "the elephants
saying the mice are crowding them off the savannah," quips a DJ from one New
York City-based microbroadcasting station.
A
Swift Dispatch At the end of October 2000, Congress and the
House of Representatives bowed to pressure from the NAB lobby and passed an
appropriations bill with a last-minute anti-LPFM rider attached, effectively
gutting the FCC's proposal to reinstate LPFM. With President Bush's appointment
of temporary FCC chairman Michael Powell, he drove another nail into the coffin
of low power FM. Powell hasstated
that without further interference testing,
he fears the new stations would undermine the few remaining small stations such
as WFMU.
Although these events seemed
to bury the possibility of LPFM licensing, this February Senator John McCain
of Arizona introduced a newLow
Power Radio Actof 2001, saying that the
NAB and NPR "…mounted a successful behind-the-scenes campaign to kill low-power
FM radio without a single debate on the Senate floor. This bill would reverse
that language." McCain's support has prevented the NAB from closing the books
on LPFM licensing, and has given the underdog community of LPFM activists and
microbroadcasters a new, albeit faint, sense of hope. The bill has yet to leave
the Senate Commerce Committee (of which McCain is chair, and which supposedly
has authority over all radio legislation), and has no co-sponsors.
Microbroadcasting stations and
groups across the country have lost a lot of their initial momentum as incremental
defeats--from Congress and from the FCC both--accumulated
over the past year. More than a year after the FCC's approval of LPFM, many
of the ex-pirates who quit broadcasting and planned to go legal are now back
to their original furtive methods, as the FCC stalls their license applications
indefinitely. Some move their transmitter from place to place to avoid the FCC.
The FCC's Enforcement Bureau plans to keep crackdowns a high priority in 2001.
The fears and claims of the NAB
and NPR amount to a haze of dubious whining that obscures the real issue: who
will control the public airwaves? Ex-FCC Chairman Kennard sums up the issue
well, "This is about the haves--the broadcast industry--trying to prevent many
have-nots--small community and educational organizations--from having just a
little piece of the pie. Just a little piece of the airwaves which belong to
all of the people."
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