by Chris Chronic, guest writer
Finally a victory in the Senate. It's a better version of what’s known as Low Power FM (LPFM) licensing just passed.
LPFM may be the livest and local-est of all radio. (Not that anyone gives a shit, since commercial radio for the most part has given up on live & local radio).
But for communities across the country, low-power broadcasting now has a freer hand in deciding who, in towns large and small across America, will receive these permits to operate stations that previously were being slapped down by the hand of Congress, DJ Jesus, and an unlikely enemy: NPR.
To be sure, LP FM was intended for the use in communities of organizations and non-profit groups to broadcast in areas where before, their message may have not been heard.
What went wrong? Back in 2000, the FCC declared that spacing standards were unfair for translators, low-power broadcasters which repeat signals from a larger station to reach an area outside its coverage area.(KPLU, for instance, uses translators to broadcast north and west)
The only other way was pirate stations (like Free Radio Olympia: Fucking shit up since 2001!)
This meant less space for new LPFMs. Adjacent stations claimed interference on either side of their already low-power translator assignments. Congress assumed a translator was the same as a higher power FM and therefore interference be damned.
The technology was the same, right? Media Geek 2003:
“What’s troubling is that the translator licensing window amounts to an enormous spectrum giveaway to stations that will not come even close to serving their local communities as well as LPFM stations that must originate at least 8 hours a day of local programming by FCC rules.
On top of that, the nation’s biggest holders of translator licenses are enormous right-wing Christian radio networks that subsist almost entirely on hundreds of these low-power translator stations. Commercial stations can only have translators to fill in gaps in their local coverage, while these godcasters slip through as “educational” non-profits which allow them to have translators to rebroadcast stations thousands of
miles away. “
(KLOVE installs their 13th station in Moses Lake)
Mega Christian broadcasters, such as Educational Media Foundation (EMF) known across the country as KLOVE, included low-power FM stations hogging the band across the nation (Bozeman alone has multiple channel applications from Radio Assist Ministries).
This summer, EMF and Prometheus Radio Project reached an agreement and wrote up a "memo of understanding" with the FCC proposing that local service give preference to LPFM applicants over translators. Radio Assist also signed off for the most part with the memorandum.
NPR, whose public radio domain is normally from 88-92 on the FM dial however, chose to block the status of LPFM radio.
Why? No one knows for sure other than ego.
From Democracy Now! in 2000:
"Nobody can accuse NPR of being a powerful special interest. But in its winsome way, NPR is now providing political cover for some real Beltway bruisers.
"Take NPR’s opposition to low-power FM radio. This FCC plan would license small radio stations to schools, churches, and local community groups for educational purposes. It’s "cottage radio," serving neighborhoods and community constituencies that big broadcasters don’t.
"Radio doesn’t get any more "public" than low-power FM! Yet NPR has joined the huge commercial conglomerates in the National Association of Broadcasters to try to block low-power radio in Congress. Not that lobbyists for Big Broadcasting need any help. They spend $5 million a year to influence legislation, and hand out an additional $1,000 a day to candidates for federal office. They treat the public airwaves like their private property. They don’t want spectrum reserved for low-power FM. Their purpose is profit, not diversity or community service."
What is NPR’s stance today? Perhaps this, summed up from the Prometheus Media Project:
“Radio Assist Ministry--possibly the largest of the translator mega-filers that resells granted translators to Christian ministries as a non-com money-making operation--filed a comment agreeing with the Memorandum for the most part. The question was, how would NPR react to the Memorandum? On August 10, NPR expressed their opinion to the FCC. To both sides' dismay, NPR found the ideas expressed in the memo "troubling."
The Daily Kos reports what you won’t read or hear much elsewhere. Reclaim the Media, a Seattle-based media justice organization also worked with other advocacy groups to see that this bill passed.
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