Washington, D.C. – In order to provide affordable outreach for community based organizations, churches, and other non-profit groups, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today introduced the Low Power Radio Act of 2001. The bill would allow the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to license low-power FM radio service, while at the same time protect existing full-power stations from interference. The bill would reverse anti-low-power FM radio language that was added to an appropriations bill last year by special interests.
"Low-power FM radio will provide many communities with increased sources of news and perspectives in an otherwise increasingly consolidated medium," McCain said. "Last Congress, special interest forces opposed to low-power FM radio, most notably the National Association of Broadcasters and National Public Radio, 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."
The bill would do the following:
Allow the FCC to license low-power FM radio stations. The only low-power FM stations that would be affected would be those whose transmissions are actually causing harmful interference to a full-power radio station.
Require the FCC to complete all rulemakings necessary to implement full-power stations' transition to digital broadcasting no later than February 23, 2002.
Direct the FCC to determine which stations are causing interference and what the low-power station must do to alleviate it.
"The legislation strikes a fair balance by allowing non-interfering low-power FM stations to operate without further delay, while affecting only those low-power stations that the FCC finds to be causing harmful interference in their actual, everyday operations," McCain said. "It's important that this bill be passed in the interest of would-be new broadcasters, existing broadcasters, but most of all, the listening public."

Following (Mass Media Bureau Chief Roy) Stewart's presentation, in which he applauded his staff for their dealings with LPFM, two Commissioners got into a bit of debate over LPFM. "When Congress has to come in and clean up the mess, it is not an accomplishment for this agency," said Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth (R). That prompted Commissioner Gloria Tristani (D) to defend the FCC's move to create LPFM. "Low power radio was a response to the real need of the American public and the American people to have a little part of that spectrum," she said. Stewart had earlier stated that approximately 40% of the LPFM applications on file will be nullified by congressional action which reinstated third adjacent channel protection from interference. Tristani lamented the churches and community groups which will not be able to broadcast using what she again inisted was "a tiny bit of spectrum."

New York, (Feb. 13) -- Robert Knight, long-term news anchor on WBAI's Wake-Up Call morning show, was told by WBAI's interim general manager Utrice Leid this morning that both he and Wake-Up Call co-host Amy Goodman have been removed from the morning show.

This move would complete the purge of WBAI's Wake Up Call on-air and off-air staff, which began with the firing of 20-year station veteran and Wake-Up Call Host Bernard White and Wake-Up Call producer and union-shop steward Sharan Harper. These firings took place during the "Christmas Coup" at WBAI-Pacifica when the network's national executives changed locks in the middle of the night and dismissed the station's management. They were followed by bannings of unpaid Wake-Up Call staff, including Janice K. Bryant, Cerene Roberts, Rosalie Hoffman and Rachel Barr. Thirty-year veteran programmer Mimi Rosenberg, news reporter Eileen Sutton and Ursula Ruedenberg have also been banned.

WBAI"s staff union, UE Local 404, has condemned these moves as a "flagrant case of union busting."

Democrat Susan Ness, the most senior member of the Federal Communications Commission won't seek a second term at the agency. With Ms. Ness' planned departure, President George W. Bush must recruit three new nominees to an agency responsible for regulating key new economy technologies like wireless devices, cable and telephone networks, as well as broadcasting. Only three members of the commission can be of the same party, which means that President Bush must now find a Democrat and two Republicans. Ms. Ness has been active in policies affecting the transition to digital television, children's television, international negotiations over spectrum management and other issues.

Visit the story link to read this complete article about NPR's role in the dismantling of LPFM

...for a while it appeared the proposed regulations might survive the lobbying onslaught. And then the FCC and its allies ran into a most unlikely opponent, one with the moral authority to do real damage to their cause: National Public Radio. In fact, two prominent pro-consumer Democrats, Massachusetts's John Kerry and Oregon's Ron Wyden, have cited NPR's impact on their decision to oppose the FCC's low-power initiative. "It's absolutely, one hundred percent very clear that Ron Wyden and John Kerry were heavily influenced by NPR," says Cheryl Leanza of the nonprofit Media Access Project. "Individuals who would have been incredibly friendly to diverse voices on the airwaves ... were swayed." And, quite possibly, duped.

...Mr. Powell said he was a "relative skeptic" of the notion that government limitations on the size of broadcast companies actually promote diversity of the airwaves. The nation's largest broadcasters, notably Viacom, have lobbied to sharply loosen the rule that prevents them from owning stations that reach more than 35 percent of households in the country, a regulation that has kept them from buying more stations.

"I am quite skeptical that anyone has any demonstrable case that such caps actually inure to the benefit of consumers in the form of greater and more diverse product," he said. "That's almost a romantic notion at times and an emotional one, and I think an important one, but that is more difficult to demonstrate objectively than to believe subjectively. As an institution of government, we have to be able to justify on more than just a sentiment the continuation of a regulatory intervention, and that's the way I feel about that cap."

...He then added that he thought "digital divide" was a dangerous phrase because it could be used to justify government entitlement programs that guaranteed poor people cheaper access to new technology, like digital television sets or computers.

"I think there is a Mercedes divide," he said. "I'd like to have one; I can't afford one. I'm not meaning to be completely flip about this. I think it's an important social issue. But it shouldn't be used to justify the notion of essentially the socialization of the deployment of the infrastructure."

Mr. Kimmelman said that Mr. Powell's remarks "were insensitive and elitist."

Others said they reflected an ivory tower view of the world. "Chairman Powell thinks that opportunity grows on trees," said Andrew J. Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a nonpartisan group that advocates diversity of the airwaves. "It doesn't. It's fostered by private-sector and public- sector policy makers. Ironically in his time in government, Michael Powell seems to have become isolated from the realities of life for most Americans."

Amid a crisis that threatens the future of the Pacifica Radio Network, more than 80 prominent progressives have rallied in support of the six dissidents on the Pacifica Foundation's board. These board members want Pacifica's national leadership to reverse course on its takeover of WBAI, and to "build democratic decision-making structures throughout Pacifica."

A statement supporting the dissenting board members was signed by the Local Advisory Board chairs of four of Pacifica's five stations and by former Pacifica staffers and board members, as well as by political figures, community leaders, journalists, artists and academics. These include Dennis Brutus, Noam Chomsky, Martín Espada, Frances Farenthold, June Jordan, Tom Morello, Tim Robbins, Edward Said, Studs Terkel, Urvashi Vaid and many more.

During the recent filing window (Jan. 16 - 22, 2001), over
500 applications for LPFM stations filed with the Federal Communications Commission in Washington D.C. sent a message that the dream for LPFM is alive and well in communities throughout the nation.
This figure also demonstrates that community and civic organizations, churches, faith communities, government agencies, and academic institutions were not discouraged by the misinformation campaign led by the national corporate and public radio broadcasters, nor by the new technical requirements mandated by Congress to limit LPFM.