To anyone who ever thought that newspapers and television and radio stations are profit-driven servants of the huge corporations that control many of them, now's your chance to say so on record.
Philadelphia-based activist groups Prometheus Radio Project and Media Tank are encouraging people to speak out to federal regulators about the media and whether it's a wise idea to allow more media mergers as a Jan. 2 deadline for public comments draws near....
Various commission officials have pointed out that the current media ownership regulations were made decades ago, when there were but three television networks and alternative information sources such as the Internet did not exist. Therefore, the officials have reasoned, it is time to see whether those old rules still apply in today's multimedia, information-soaked world.
But activists and consumer advocates warn that there could be dangers in changing some of those rules. They say that allowing media conglomerates - such as Viacom Inc., General Electric Co., Walt Disney Co. and News Corp. - to own even more properties could lead to blander programming and an unwillingness to cover news that parent companies or their affiliates might find unflattering.

Nice article from Canada on issues with digitial radio broadcasting.

Digital radio or digital audio broadcasting (DAB) has had a brief and troubled history. DAB was first developed with an eye to commercial use in the late 1980s. Via a digital radio technology called Eureka 147, broadcasters can transmit a complex signal with many potential applications, not the least of which is a crystal-clear sound. As CD-quality music plays, a radio display will show the song title and artist. Press a button and you can order the CD. Press another and you can order concert tickets. Stations can be personalized according to a listener's needs with the latest weather, traffic or stock market quotes available upon request...
While Europe's major broadcasters embraced Eureka 147, it was a very different story in the United States. Concern that a new dedicated digital band would undermine the value of FM stations prompted the United States to support a made-in-America compromise called IBOC (in band/on channel). The IBOC plan requires no new spectrum and squeezes new digital signals within the existing FM and AM radio bands. IBOC, recently rechristened HD Radio, was approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in October and has the support of 14 of the country's top 20 radio broadcasters.
HD Radio has been met with much hostility by Canadian supporters of Eureka 147. They claim the U.S. plan will mean an inferior digital radio signal for the world's largest commercial audience.
"You're left with the conclusion why did they [U.S. broadcasters] bother? They ended up with a system that isn't particularly useful," says Steve Edwards, vice-president of corporate engineering and technology at Rogers Media, a unit of Toronto holding company Rogers Communications Inc.
More important, HD Radio has created a major stumbling block for the growth of Eureka 147. The two formats are not compatible and require separate digital receivers....
Supporters are quick to compare digital radio's slow birth to FM, a band that took about 30 years to capture the public's imagination.

New voices will join the public airways in 2003 as KRFC brings community public radio back to the city... KRFC will be a commercial-free, grassroots public radio station, meaning it will be run and staffed mostly by volunteers, and be heard in Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland... Radio Fort Collins, which will broadcast at 88.9 on the FM dial, has about 100 active volunteers taking care of programming, construction and a host of other concerns, Krush said... KRFC returns community radio to the city, lost in 1995 when KCSU was turned over to students at Colorado State University... When KRFC goes on the air, it will be the culmination of nearly nine years of work by a handful of volunteers to win a coveted FM license from the FCC.

Big City Radio Inc., continuing a move to liquidate assets, said yesterday it agreed to sell its four New York radio stations to Nassau Broadcasting Holdings Inc. for $43 million. They are: WYNY-FM, WWZY-FM, WWXY-FM and WWYY-FM.