Matthew Lasar Says the FCC wasn’t just Naughty

Matthew Lasar argues that the FCC did a few nice things this year making it deserving of something other than coal in the stocking. Included in that list are asking Congress to restore LPFM, putting a cap on cable companies limiting them to serving no more than 30% of the nation’s subscribers, and the localism questions up for public comment.

Reclaim the Media Presents Community Media Film Festival

I think this is just a great idea and I wish I could be out in Seattle to attend. It’s a great weekend for community media events. You could start this weekend in Montreal for CKUT’s Redefining Media conference starting Friday (hear more about it on last Friday’s radioshow), then jet over to Seattle to catch the first screening of the Community Media Film Festival starting at 7 PM with Pirate Radio USA.

The Community Media Film Festival is screening Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad/A Little Bit of So Much Truth, which also is screening at the Redefining Media conference. The filmmaker, Jill Freidberg, is scheduled to be a guest on the Oct. 26 edition of the radioshow to talk about this documentary.

Also playing is Michael Lahey’s great Making Waves, as much a brilliant character study as it is a movie about pirate radio in Tuscon, AZ. I spoke with Michael on the Nov. 12, 2004 edition of the radioshow.

Finally, the fest will feature the Seattle premiere of the new documentary about Paper Tiger TV, Paper Tiger Reads Paper Tiger Television. I’m lucky to have Maria Juliana Byck from Paper Tiger TV as a guest on this coming Friday’s radioshow to talk about this documentary celebrating 25 years of cutting edge public access TV.

The fest wraps up on Oct. 23 with what looks to be a really good panel discussion on the future of community media broadcasting. I hope the RTM folks will audio or video record this panel to share.

If you’re anywhere near Seattle this next weekend and week you shouldn’t miss it.

Taking Another Stab at Restoring LPFM

After the FCC created the low-power FM radio service in 2000, Congressional Republicans in the pocket of the NAB made a last-minute backroom maneuver to add a major restriction to the service in a budget bill. The restriction requires 100-watt LPFM stations to be spaced on the dial the same as full-power stations as large as 100,000 watts, despite the so-called Mitre report to Congress that showed LPFMs pose no significant interference threat to full-power stations when spaced according to the FCC’s original specifications.

The effect of this restriction has been that most urban areas–including the top 50 radio markets–can’t have LPFM stations because there’s no space on the dial that meets these absurd standards.

So, today, House Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced the introduction of bipartisan bills to restore LPFM. This is now the third (or maybe fourth) attempt, with McCain being the Congressperson with the most tries under his belt.

Last year McCain succeeded in getting language through the Senate Commerce Committee as an amendment to an otherwise crappy telecom bill aimed at creating the national cable franchise. That bill never made it to the floor for a vote.

As a standalone bill I hope there’s a chance for this to pass and bring about hundreds of new community stations, especially in poorer urban neighborhoods that desperately need radically local community media. With the bipartisan support and a Democratic House, my guess is that there’s a good shot all around. The changes in the relevant committees should only help the situation, not hurt it.

But we can’t doubt the power of the broadcast lobby’s deep pockets to influence Congresscritters in both parties to scuttle the restoration of LPFM. Nor can we ignore the prospect of a veto, since Bush has never been a friend to LPFM or community media of any kind.

I think the stories of the Mississippi and Louisiana LPFMs that stayed on during Katrina might be supporter’s best shot and pulling Congressional heartstrings harder than their pursestrings.

On Friday’s radioshow (5:30 PM WEFT 90.1 FM Champaign, IL) I’ll have audio from the national press call held on Thursday, featuring comments from Reps. Doyle and Terry and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls. The show will be available online by Sunday midnight.

Two New Radio Show Affiliates

I’m glad to hear from new two new affiliates carrying the mediageek radioshow.

WVEW-LP Brattleboro Community Radio in Vermont is the licensed low-power successor to unlicensed Free Radio Brattleboro, and they’re carrying the show Fridays at 10 AM. On the upcoming June 8 edition of the show I’ll be airing an interview with Larry Bloch, who was involved with FRB and is now hosting a show at WVEW.

And today I just heard from CHMA 106.9 FM, the campus and community station at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.

Show notes for Feb. 16 radioshow: FCC makes LPFM exceptions; SFLR has its day in court

John Anderson from DIYmedia.net was my guest for the Feb. 16 edition of the mediageek radioshow [listen now]. We talked about a couple of exceptions the FCC has made with regard to issuing low-power FM licenses. First, the FCC has given “special temporary authority” to a former FM pirate in Goldfield, Nevada — read articles at DIYmedia and Radio Currents Online. Second, the Commission has offered a LPFM license to a group complaining about the loss of noncommercial classical music programming resulting from the sale of a station — read DIYmedia’s article.

We also discussed San Francisco Liberation Radio’s appearance in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Valentine’s Day. There wasn’t much to report from except for a short announcement on SFLR’s website:

Every dog has his day. We had ours. Victory doesn’t look too hopeful, but who knows? One judge was definitely agin us and kept interrupting our counsel.:-(
“JUST WHAT WOULD DUE PROCESS HAVE GAINED YOU? 4 MORE DAYS OF ILLEGAL BROADCASTING????”
The other 2 were more polite. And they asked better questions like (to the counsel for the government): “Do you really think they would have moved the station?” (had we had foreknowledge of the seizure by going before a judge first). Would we have? You can answer that question for yourselves.
And now let’s have a surge of low-power, community radio!!!

This morning I found a report filed in the Oroville Mercury-Register (quick plug: the radioshow is heard Wed. at 3 PM on KRBS 107.1 FM in Oroville). Here’s a bit more of the judges’ questioning:

Unlike print or online communications, broadcasting over public airwaves is still “inherently limited” and needs “a traffic cop to keep straight who’s on what frequency,” (Circuit Judge Richard) Clifton said. “It’s the FCC, not the court, that’s the traffic cop. … I’m not sure this is anything but an empty exercise.”

Senior Circuit Judge Betty Fletcher suggested the station’s operators “ought to be lobbying Congress to change the statute.” Vermeulen replied that they are, but still deserved a day in court to make their constitutional arguments before their equipment was seized.

Justice Department appellate attorney Eric Feigin argued that another judicial circuit has found there’s no due process right under this statute before equipment is seized, and no First Amendment right to broadcast without a license.

Doesn’t look too promising. But, then, and John and I discussed on the show, I think even the station volunteers know they’re hanging by a thin strand. This isn’t a case or an argument that would set major precedent for free radio, even if SFLR were victorious. Nevertheless, I give the whole SFLR crew credit for holding the line and steadfastly asserting their rights for so long.

Also according to the Mercury Register article, SFLR apparently has replaced their equipment but is waiting for their case to be over before returning to the air.

Mobile FM Transmitters — A Modulator Menace, or a Mountain out of a Molehill?

The traditional radio broadcast industry is getting pretty desperate lately. But while commercial radio has seen its fortunes slowly decline after squeezing out the consolidation profits, public radio has generally faired better. Nevertheless, there’s still some unregulated competition and interference coming from those little FM transmitters people use to pump their portable music players into their car stereos.

The NAB made a stink last month about FM modulators included in some satellite radios that apparently exceed the part 15 limits for unlicensed broadcasting. Conjuring up images of innocent drivers being bombarded with unwanted broadcasts of potty-talk from Howard Stern’s Sirius satellite morning show on their morning commute, the nation’s largest broadcast lobby has been pushing the FCC to force a recall.

The NAB did their own study on a wide variety of FM modulators and found, surprise surprise, that 76% exceeded Part 15 output limits. Despite the NAB’s history of releasing loaded research reports to kill off technologies it opposes (like LPFM), I don’t doubt their findings. Part 15 limits on the FM band are really low, and most of these cheap transmitters are not precision devices. In fact, my experience is that the ones that operate under Part 15 limits tend not to be particuarly useful, due to very limited range.

But, because Part 15 limits are so low, it’s hard to see these transmitters which operate at less than 1/10 of a watt at most can be a real threat to a local broadcast station in any significant way. I can’t imagine one of these transmitters posing more problems than power lines and other sources of electrical interference.

To their credit, NPR decided to investigate in a more real-world situation, setting up an antenna and spectrum analyzer alongside several major highways in the Washington DC area. NPR’s study [PDF link] found that as many as .91% of vehicles at any given time were operating a mini FM transmitter, and that sometimes a majority of them were operating above Part 15 limits. This amounts to as many as .39% of vehicles measured broadcasting with a noncompliant FM transmitter — about 4 in 1000.

While the NPR report confirms that there are noncompliant modulators operating in the real world, it still doesn’t address the claim that they’re causing interference with licensed stations. NPR’s report suggests that interference to distant stations would be possible — the measured field strength of some transmitters (at 48 – 68 dBμV) matches the field strength of the outer reaches of a station’s “rural service” area (at 56 – 60 dBμV).

But that’s still theory. RadioWorld’s report on the issue quotes some DC-area listener complaints about hearing Stern, specifically, instead of Baltimore NPR station WYPR. Yet that’s a pretty unique situation, with people trying to tune in a station nearly 50 miles away, on a frequency (88.1 FM) that is commonly used by these transmitters.

For the user of the transmitter there’s a strong disincentive to using it on frequency occupied by a local station, since it will be easily overwhelmed by any full-power transmitter. At most, what we’re really seeing, then, is a few fringe-area listeners being momentarily inconvenienced while trying to listen to a distant signal that isn’t strong enough to overpower a tiny transmitter that might be broadcasting a little outside the limits.

To me, the brouhaha is just another example of the broadcast industry dedicating its efforts to stomp out any possible tiny bit of competition rather than focus on providing a valuable service. NPR’s a little different here, in that it really is more listener than profit focus. Nevertheless, NPR didn’t shy away from joining the NAB in trying to stomp out LPFM over bogus cries of intereference.

Nevermind that NPR stations are some of the biggest users of translator stations, that can use up to 2.5x as much power as LPFM stations and are allowed to be crammed in closer to full-power licensed stations than LPFM can.

Frankly, I like the idea of thousands of little unlicensed transmitters operating all over the nation’s highways. None are strong enough to overwhelm a local station, but any one of them might just provide something more interesting than what’s on the rest of the dial.

In a way, it’s akin to Tetsuo Kogawa‘s idea of Mini-FM radio broadcasting ultra-local radio to neighborhoods, or just a city block.

Over the years lots of radio activists and hobbyists have talked about creating networks of small Part 15 transmitters. So maybe the “modulator menace” is a spontaneous version of that idea, more the result of a critical mass than any sort of organized movement. Perhaps it’s even a form of unintentional civil disobedience (an oxymoron, I admit), if it’s true that these transmitters are operating mostly above legal limits.

About two years ago the blogosphere was all atwitter over the discovery that one iPod transmitter accessory could be easily modified to broadcast much further. This led to all sorts of blogger fantasies of turning their iPods into mobile microbroadcast stations, even advertising their frequency on bumper stickers.

Of course, that fad is soooo 2004, and unwanted Stern reception seems to be the big threat here. Even if thousands of people took up the call to use their little modulators to bring something a little more intentionally unique to the airwaves I can’t see this as a great threat to FM broadcasters. But that won’t stop the NAB from calling out the calvary.

If they succeed in pushing the FCC into action, then you might have to buy one of these “high power” transmitters while you still can.

Progressives’ Paradox — Senate Commerce Committee Votes Up on LPFM, Down on Net Neutrality

Oh, those party lines. Senate Commerce Committee Republicans showed themselves to be 92% against ensuring internet freedom, with 11 out of 12 voting against a net neutrality amendment to the big telecom bill (S.2686) today. That was a much narrower loss than a similar amendment suffered in the House, due to the fact that all Committee Democrats in the Senate supported net neutrality.

On the brighter side, the Committee also voted in favor of Sen. McCain’s LPFM amendment that would reverse the 2000 evisceration of low-power radio by restoring the FCC’s original spacing requirements. There was bipartisan support on this one, with 14 votes for, and 7 against.

So now the paradox facing the media reform movement is that although it would restore LPFM, the overall Senate telecomm bill is a near-wholesale giveaway to the big telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon that also screws local communities and municipalities by taking away their ability to negotiate for better public service. One arm of community media–public access TV–is threatened with extinction, while the other–LPFM–gets a boost. Loaves to the telecomm industry, crumbs to the public.

On Sunday I attended a community radio caucus at the AMC organized by Prometheus Radio Project where this exact situation was discussed. The advice from Prometheus’ Hannah Sassaman was to urge one’s senator to support LPFM, but also to support public access. The underlying logic is that even if the over telecomm bill fails, LPFM amendment and all, the political life of the overall LPFM cause will be extended as a result of the amendment’s passage in the first place.

Will the same logic apply to net neutrality? Are media reformers willing to trade away the future of public access in order to get internet freedom guarantees?

The party-line vote at the Commerce Committee would seem to indicate that there’s strong support amongst Senate Democrats for internet freedom–more than in the House–but not necessarily enough across the aisle to pass amendment. Though, one Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Orgeon, is willing to use his Senate privilege to put a hold on the telecomm bill if it fails to contain net neutrality provisions.

Also, just yesterday, Commerce Chair Ted Stevens told Reuters that he doesn’t yet have lined up the 60 votes necessary to end debate and force a vote on the Senate floor. So Senate Democrats also have a viable opportunity to filibuster and derail the whole telecom bill.

Network neutrality very well may be the issue that saves or kills the Senate telecom bill. Accepting net neutrality may be the compromise the big telcos have to accept in order to get all the other valuable gimmies — though I seriously doubt they’ll be willing to budge, even if some Republicans do.

The the question remains: if Senate Republicans compromise and give in on network neutrality, will media reformers be willing to accept that in exchange for selling out the future of public access TV? My guess is that they will, and wouldn’t blame them. The bigger picture is the internet, you don’t need any special genius to see that.

But in the biggest picture, I think we’d all be better off if the national franchise doesn’t pass in the first place. Network neutrality may still have a good shot on its own, and the situation is just a little less dire if the likes of AT&T aren’t given free reign to take over the nation’s TVs.

Path for LPFM through the Telecom Bill Forest?

Thursday at 2 PM EDT the Senate Commerce Comittee will begin marking up and possibly voting on the ironically titled Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006. It’s the Senate version of the COPE Act, whose primary purpose is to speed the entry of the big telcos, like AT&T and Verizon, into the cable TV business, without all those pesky public service requirements that traditional cable has had to contend with.

One little point of light is that Sen. John McCain is taking this as an opportunity to offer an amendment called the Local Community Radio Act [PDF of the Act], which would reverse the 2000 act of Congress that cut LPFM off at the knees . McCain’s amendment would restore the FCC’s original spacing requirements for the service, allowing LPFM stations to be closer than three adjacent frequencies to other stations.

Of course, we can also expect network neutrality to be hotly debated during this markup. And, I daresay that net neutrality is more important than the restoration of LPFM — even though that restoration could mean hundreds to thousands more community stations across the country.

Trouble in the Temples of Christian Broadcasting

My pal John Anderson was my guest on the radioshow this evening to tell us about the newest dirt on the Calvary Satellite Network, the Clear Channel of Christian broadcasting. It seems that the two principal churches behind the network, the Calvary Chapel of Twin Falls, ID and the Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, are enmeshed in a nasty legal battle over the assets of the network.

Twin Falls owns the licenses for the 388-station network, but apparently Costa Mesa owns the gear. And now the principals are slinging mud in lawsuits full of allegations of mismanagement and embezzlement.

This situation is important because CSN Radio is built almost entirely upon translator stations — low-power stations that may be more liberally placed on the dial than regular noncommercial LPFM stations, but that are forbidden from originating their own programming. These stations, that bring no local programming to a community, hog up spaces that can be used by full-service truly local stations.

Further, some former Calvary-related folks snapped up hundreds of additional translator licenses during the FCC’s last licensing window, and have apparently been trafficking in these free noncommercial licenses for fun and profit.

John and I have been following Calvary Chapel and their related broadcast enterprises for quite some time. So, it’s actually quite amusing to see how the money and power amassed through running a nationwide godcasting network has apparently just brought in abuse and corruption.

You can hear more a little later this weekend when today’s radioshow gets posted.

Godcasters Making a Mint by Trafficking in Free Low-Power Radio Licenses

Last year I was tracking the apparent trafficking in low-power FM translator stations by several Christian broadcasting groups. Translators are stations whose only legal purpose is to rebroadcast the programming of a full-power parent station.

John at DIYmedia has an update on the traffickers and their spoils from laundering licenses that come free-of-charge from the FCC:

Radio Assist Ministry and Edgewater Broadcasting (which are actually one and the same) filed more than 4,000 FM translator construction permit applications during a 2003 FCC filing window for new FM translator stations. In less than two years RAM/EB booked more than $800,000 in revenue by selling batches of translator construction permits to evangelistic mega-churches in the South and West (although a host of smaller transactions also took place).

These churches, in effect, bought permission to build state-wide or regional networks through speculators who snapped up the permits en masse, just for this very purpose.

Now, RAM/EB is billing well into the seven figures after booking several new deals with its biggest clients.

Last March John was on the radioshow to discuss his research on the godcasters’ translator trafficking. That same month I talked to Harold Feld from the Media Access Project who discussed his group’s petition to the FCC on the issue.

John also contributed an in-depth article on TranslatorGate to mediageek zine #3, which is available for purchase online for just $3.50.

Finally, here are some earlier posts from DIYmedia and mediageek to fill in some of the backstory:

• DIYmedia – Moneychangers In the Temple
• DIYmedia – God Squads Fall From Grace
• DIYmedia – Religious Broadcasting As Franchise Operation
• mediageek – Something Fishy in Right-Wing-Christian-Translator-land, Grabbing Spectrum away from LPFM, Maybe Profiting from the Venture?
• mediageek – Calvary Chapel, LPFM and Plausible Deniability
• mediageek – Calvary Chapel: The Decentralized Christian Clear Channel