On Thursday’s Radioshow: New LPFM Bill & Journalism Town Hall

Another new Congress, another new low-power FM bill. In what’s become a tradition since Congress voted to stunt the growth of low-power radio back in 2000, a new Local Community Radio Act has been introduced. But this time around the bill arguably has the best chance of passing yet. We’ll hear from some of the bill’s sponsors and proponents.

Then we’ll hear some excerpts from the Chicago Journalism Town Hall that brought together a diverse panel and audience to discuss the future of local journalism.

The mediageek radioshow airs live Thursday night at 9 PM CST on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago, IL, and streaimng live online at wnur.org. The podcast will be posted this weekend.

Inauguration Shows that the Internet Still Isn’t Broadcast

Last Tuesday’s presidential inauguration was one of those moments where I think all business except for vital functions like transit and public safety stopped all over the country as people tuned in to watch Obama’s swearing in. Another thing that stopped for a lot of people was the internet. Arguably this was one of the biggest, if not the biggest live streaming video events in the history of the event. It was also one of biggest tests for streaming video over the internet, and the results were decidedly mixed.

I was at work on Tuesday, where one of my responsibilities is providing instructional media support. As soon as I got in that morning I started getting requests from people all over our building to set them up to watch the inauguration. Now, the building I work in is poured concrete monstrosity that acts like a Faraday cage, successfully blocking reception of most broadcast signals. On top of that, there’s no cable TV in building. So I advised anyone who asked about getting a TV that they should consider viewing a live stream. Then I went to go set up a live stream in a large conference room with a video projector. At that moment I realized that maybe the live stream wasn’t going to work out so well, as it took many different attempts on several different sites before we could get anything to stream for more than a few seconds. That was around 30 minutes before the inauguration was set to begin.

When I returned to my office all attempts to get a stream there–whether from CNN, Ustream or even the CBC–resulted in failure. A few minutes after the ceremony began I received an email from our central IT network department, advising us that our multi-gigabit campus network had ground to a halt due to people watching the inauguration online. Looking at Twitter and the CNN live Facebook stream I saw that we were not alone, as folks all over the internet were finding it hard to get a reliable stream.

In the end it looks like about 7 million people were able to get live streams of the inauguration, according to Dan Rayburn whose estimates are based on talking to actual content distribution networks. By any standard that’s an impressive simultaneous viewership for the internet. But it’s less impressive compared to broadcast television, where 37.8 million people watched the inauguration.

More illustrative of the difference is the number of people who were denied the ability to watch the inauguration due to capacity limits. That is, another 37 million people could have tuned in to the inauguration on broadcast, cable or satellite TV while still leaving capacity for 37 million more. Whereas on the internet 7 million appears to be the upper limit — past that nobody else could watch.
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“Integrity” as Marketing Bullshit, the Case of Indie 103.1

The big commercial radio story making the rounds this week is news of Los Angeles’ Indie 103.1 going off the air to being online only in order to “save” its “integrity.” While it’s romantic to believe the notion of a commercial radio station suffering for its art (a la FM), it’s a fantasy.

Indie 103.1 was a commercial alternative rock station that attempted to break out of the typical mold by hiring DJs who actually chose some of the music they played and having close ties to the alt rock community. For instance, former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones had his own show for a while, as did Henry Rollins and Rob Zombie. But the station sort of stuck out like a sore thumb in owner Entravision‘s portfolio, given that the company is a mid-size player specializing in Spanish-language radio and television stations.

I’d listened to the station once or twice online since the format went live in 2003, and I will have to admit that it was refreshing compared to most commercial radio, but hardly freeform or revolutionary compared to most college or community stations. Still, now the dream is over, as the station is off the air and exclusively online.

But the hook that the transition online is some sort of play to preserve the station’s integrity in the face of ratings pressure is pure bullshit. I don’t doubt that ratings played a part in the station going off the air as Indie 103.1, but the reality of the transition to online is that the internet incarnation will bare little resemblance to the FM signal. According to the station’s music director, “None of the primary DJs or music programmers at the station are involved in the website and it’s not being run by people who ran the station.”

That quote was published last Friday, the 16th, and just a while ago on the 19th I checked the Indie 103.1 website and there’s a new message declaring that many of the station’s DJs actually will be doing shows:

In true Indie fashion, these DJs have offered to continue their labor of love and host their shows on-line. …

While some might view that as a victory, resulting from a public relations backlash, I say it’s still an example of consolidation in action. Sure, fans of Indie 103.1 will still be able to listen to some of their favorite shows online, but only while tethered to their computers–not yet on the go, in their cars or anywhere they don’t have a persistent internet connection. Furthermore, on the internet Indie 103.1 simply isn’t that special. The lower cost of entry means there’s hundreds of stations playing eclectic alternative rock that’s got more “integrity” than Indie 103.1.

What made Indie 103.1 special at all was the fact that it survived as an actual broadcast commercial radio station in the nation’s second market playing a less repetitive and not strictly playlisted format that still allowed DJs a hand in picking the tunes. If it had integrity, that’s where it was. There’s no indication that the staff and management were give the choice of go mainstream or go off the air. Rather, they were told they were going off the air, and their only outlet would be online. The whole “maintaining integrity” line is marketing bullshit, pure and simple.
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Catch up with the mediageek radioshow: New FCC Chairman & FCC Enforcement 2008

If you haven’t been keeping up with the mediageek radioshow or subscribing to the podcast, now is a good time to listen to this week’s show featuring our favorite FCC watcher, Matthew Lasar. We talk about the man reported to be Obama’s pick for FCC Chair, Julius Genachowski, and what his appointment to the FCC might mean for internet freedom and media ownership.

Listen to this show right now:

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The first show of the new year featured my annual year in review discussion with John Anderson of DIYmedia.net. In the first half of the program we noted the relative lack of progress on many issues and discussed Larry Lessig’s call to get rid of the FCC. For the second half we got down to brass tacks reviewing John’s research on FCC enforcement action against unlicensed broadcasters in 2008 — a whole lotta smoke, not much fire. Ragnar also excerpted a portion of this on his Pirate’s Week podcast.

Listen to part one of the year-in-review:

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Listen to part two, all about FCC enforcement in 2008:

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FCC Chair Choice Sparks Hope for Net Neutrality, Other Issues Less Clear

Last month Matthew Lasar dug up info on this mysterious Julius Genachowski whose name starting circulating as a candidate for Obama’s FCC Chairman. Late Monday night the news broke that Genachowski is slated to be Obama’s nominee for the job. As Matthew noted in his Ars Technica article yesterday, the public interest community is responding positively to this news, primarily based upon Genachowski’s work on Obama’s “Technology and Innovation” plan. Given that candidate Obama was specific in his support for Network Neutrality, the hope inspired by Genchowski’s likely nomination appears to be more well founded than any other news on the Net Neutrality front in the last year.

However, much is still unknown about Genachowski’s views on media issues, like ownership concentration and indecency enforcement. He was an assistant to Clinton-appointed FCC Chairman Reed Hundt in the 1990s, and we might learn a little bit about Genachowski by looking at his former boss’ tenure at the Commission. With regard to media ownership, Hundt opposed lifting the nationwide radio ownership cap. The lifting of the cap–which brought on the Clear Channel era–happened with the passing of the Telecomm Act of 1996 by Congress, signed by President Clinton, and was not decided by the Hundt FCC. Hundt was also a proponent of children’s programming requirements, while also pushing for indecency fines against the likes of Howard Stern.

We’re sure to learn more about Genachowski’s views on a whole panoply of communication issues when he goes up for confirmation by the Senate. Here’s hoping that his apparently progressive outlook on Net Neutrality is combined with the willingness to put the brakes on the Bush FCC’s full-speed gallop on loosening media ownership limits. I must admit that ensuring a free and open internet, along with enacting policies to stimulate high-speed broadband build-out really should be the top priority for media and telecomm, above all.

With the lessons learned from the 1996 Telecomm Act and the ill-considered experiment of taking away common carrier status from internet (therefore creating the need for Net Neutrality) there exists a blueprint for creating a much more vibrant, diverse and free media ecology.

Another College Station Bids Farewell

Over at Arcane Radio Trivia, Jose Fritz laments the passing of college station WAWL on Dec. 10, formerly broadcasting from Chattanooga State Technical Community College . The college sold off its license for 91.5 FM for $1.5 million to Christian broadcaster Family Life Radio, based out of Tuscon, AZ.

$1.5 mil is a pretty big chunk of change for just one station in the 106th largest radio market in the US. I think that price conveys the relative scarcity of prime, full-power noncommercial channel space, even compared to commercial stations. It also demonstrates how the evangelical religious broadcast business is booming despite the down economy (perhaps even because of the down economy, feeding on people’s desperation).

Unfortunately, Family Life Radio’s gain is Chattanooga’s loss, as the city has a source for radio programming in touch with the local community and culture replaced with cookie-cutter, satellite-fed godcasting. What’s all the more rotten is that much of Family Life Radio’s programming is already heard on several other stations in the Chattanooga area, whether its contemporary Christian music or segments from Focus on the Family.

Chattanooga resident Paul Jackson articulates the loss in an opinion piece for the Chattanoogan:

when a 20-year non-commercial staple in this market that provides programming not offered by any other outlet (nor has any other throughout most of its existence) is simply auctioned and sold to a special interest group, could this raise a question of the importance of radio serving the interests of the community?

This is a side of deregulation and the resultant consolidation of the radio dial that often goes unnoticed. The growth market in Christian satellite-fed radio has caused the market value of noncommercial licenses to bubble in an area of broadcasting that was never intended to be subject to the so-called free market. The Clear Channelization of noncommercial radio has been slower than consolidation in commercial radio, but will only get worse as institutional owners of noncommercial college, educational and community-service stations strain under the bad economy, tempted by the opportunity for a quick buck obtained by selling off their radio licenses.

I might be more forgiving if Family Life Radio were at least going to broadcast a healthy schedule of locally-originated programming, supplemented by syndicated shows. But I see no indication that any of FLR’s station air much in the way of locally produced content — it’s the same lineup in Tuscon as in Lubbock as in Kalamazoo.

Now, Family Life Radio is still just shy of the 20-station limit that was in place before 1996, but the ability to buy a station in Chattanooga for $1.5 million indicates that this godcaster is ready to blow past that benchmark as long as it can find willing sellers. And once it does, another community will lose a local voice in favor of another homogenized godcaster from a 24/7 satellite signal.

mediageek radioshow for 11 December 2008: Looking Behind the Curtain at the Tribune Bankruptcy

Mitchell Szczepanczyk from Chicago Media Action joins to discuss the Dec. 8 filing for bankruptcy by the Tribune Company. Mitchell has been watching Tribune for many years now, since the company is a major media player both in the Chicago area and nationally. So he has some longitudinal perspective often lacking in press reports.

Download/Podcast:

mediageek 11 December 2008 broadcast quality mp3

Listen Now:

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On Tonight’s Radioshow: Breaking Down the Tribune Bankruptcy

Over at Chicago Media Action Mitchell Szczepanczyk has written a concise “Chicago Citizen Activist’s Guide to the Tribune Bankruptcy” that makes simple work of untangling the how and why the Tribune company is in the financial dumps:

The Tribune debt didn’t just happen. It happened because Zell used the debt to buy the company.

Why did Zell buy the company? Because a Tribune shareholder revolt in the summer of 2006 demanded a change of ownership, and the following spring they got it.

Why did Tribune shareholders revolt? Because the Tribune thought that by 2006 they would be rolling in cash for having a bunch of TV-newspaper duopolies. They banked their future on it. And for good reason: The Tribune already owned four such duopolies across America, and what, you were expecting media concentration to stop or something? Are you some kind of anti-market communist freak?

Mitchell will be my guest on the radioshow tonight (9 PM WNUR 89.3 FM, Evanston-Chicago, IL) to talk more in depth about the greed, incompetence, arrogance and myopia that led to so many job losses, eroded journalism and who-knows-what-more.

I’m working on my own piece triggered by the Tribune bankruptcy, but more broadly aimed at the rotten outcome of the post-1996 consolidation era. Some observers, free-marketeers and big media apologists are now claiming that such disasters as Clear Channel going private equity and all these bankruptcies are evidence that we don’t need ownership regs, because clearly the market is acting to correct the excesses of consolidation: See, now these big consolidated behemoths will be broken back down into littler pieces.

But what they fail to account for is the real human toll — the lost jobs, the lost public service, the diminished local content, news and information.

Nov. 4 Is the Date for More than One Important Vote

There is a vote scheduled for November 4 that is very easily overshadowed by another, somewhat more high-profile vote. While the nation’s voters decide whether Barack Obama or John McCain (or Cynthia McKinney or Bob Barr) will be the next president the FCC will be making an important decision about the future of internet access in the US.

At its Nov. 4 meeting the FCC is scheduled to decide on opening up to broadband wireless internet spectrum being vacated by the analog TV turn-off. Already FCC engineers have released a report endorsing this use of these so-called “white spaces.”

Predictably, the National Association of Broadcasters is going to great lengths to prevent this from happening, sensing a credible threat to their broadcast spectrum oligopoly and plans to turn TV and radio frequencies into tightly-controlled digital networks that are internet-like but mostly useful for helping you spend money. Like in 2000 when they cried “interference” over the creation of 100 watt low-power FM stations next to their 50,000 watt blowtorches, the NAB is challenging the FCC’s own engineers to claim that opening up white spaces for what is being called “wi-fi on steroids” will cause interference to television broadcasts. Nevermind that the FCC engineer’s are about as cautious and conservative a bunch you’ll ever find, backed up by independent analysts time and again.

So what do you do when you’re a industry lobbying group that doesn’t have the engineering facts on your side? Why, you lobby Congress with bogus arguments hoping they’ll intervene! The NAB also filed a request with the FCC to delay the vote, which doesn’t seem to be getting a warm reception at the Commission.

It’s no secret that the broadcast industry isn’t in great shape, largely due to decades of backwards-looking, anti-innovation business moves combined with repeated Congressional and FCC lobbying efforts to win regulatory protection in direct conflict with their free-market rhetoric. Now the NAB has no problem blocking the potential for greater nationwide broadband internet access that could be especially valuable to rural and other underserved areas. Just think, anywhere that can receive an over-the-air TV signal now could be receiving broadband internet wirelessly.

Groups like Free Press are running campaigns to help reach out to your congresscritters, though I’m betting they’re unlikely to pay much attention to the NAB’s bellyaching right now.

I’ll also be covering the issue on this week’s radioshow, with eagle-eyed FCC watcher Matthew Lasar joining to bring maximum analysis to the situation.

One small step for logic and reason: 3rd Circuit Tosses Out FCC’s Janet Jackson Superbowl Fine

I believe I can see the house of cards that is the FCC’s current approach to broadcast indecency starting to fall apart. Today the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the FCC’s $500k fine against CBS for the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl half-time show. In its ruling the Court said the Commission’s policy on indecency, especially with regard to fleeting indecency (Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed for 9/16 of a second) is “arbitrary and capricious.”

A major component of this decision is the Court questioning the FCC’s change to treating fleeting indecency much more severely after a consistent record of otherwise “restrained enforcement” since FCC v Pacifica. The FCC tried to justify its crackdown based upon the fact that the Super Bowl half-time incident was visual in nature, whereas its past “restrained enforcement” only regarded spoken indecency.

The Court soundly rejected that argument:

“In sum, the balance of the evidence weighs heavily against the FCC’s contention that its restrained enforcement policy for fleeting material extended only to fleeting words and not to fleeting images. As detailed, the Commission’s entire regulatory scheme treated broadcasted images and words interchangeably for purposes of determining indecency. Therefore, it follows that the Commission’s exception for fleeting material under that regulatory scheme likewise treated images and words alike. Three decades of FCC action support this conclusion.”

I think this decision does not bode well for the survivability of the FCC’s indecency regime against fleeting indecency and expletives, whether it’s Bono’s f-bomb at the Golden Globes or a woman’s bare buttock on NYPD Blue. Although the true future of this regime is now in the hands of the Supremes, it seems to me unlikely that the SCOTUS will rule entirely opposite of the Circuit Courts in finding the FCC’s approach to “arbitrary and capricious.”

Matthew Lasar and I discussed the state of indecency before this Third Circuit decision on the July 11 radioshow. Matthew said that one worry some media reform activists have is that a Supreme Court judgement against the FCC’s indecency regime might take aim at the foundational decisions establishing the FCC’s domain over the airwaves, such as Red Lion v FCC. Eric Alterman and George Zornick outline this concern in an article for the Center for American Progress.

Yet Red Lion is much bigger than indecency, and it should be possible for the Court to rule against the FCC’s current indecency regime without throwing out the totality of the FCC’s regulatory power over broadcast. Just because the big broadcasters hope to use their case to chip away at Red Lion doesn’t mean the Court will take them up on it.

At the same time, I’m not exactly a fan of the Red Lion decision. Although this is a topic for a much longer treatise, my problem with Red Lion is that it relies primarily on the scarcity of spectrum argument, which is a double-edged sword. While it justifies what is in reality merely limp-wristed FCC enforcement of the public interest, it primarily serves as a method for the dominant broadcasters to retain their oligarchy on the airwaves, keeping potential new entrants–like LPFM–at bay, while reaping enormous profits without paying back one red cent of rent on that valuable spectrum.

Were the FCC something more than a toothless captured regulator and it were willing and able to make good on the public interest bargain promised by Red Lion, then I might be more concerned about that decision’s survival. Instead, clinging to this decision smacks of begging for crumbs–something I have almost no stomach for.

However, I’m not arguing or even necessarily hoping for the Supreme Court to eviscerate Red Lion if it rules against the FCC’s indecency regime. The most likely alternative to Red Lion is an even more toothless FCC armed only to act as security guards for the nation’s media elite. A more rational approach to broadcast spectrum regulation based on public interest and not scarcity is necessary if Red Lion is lost, and I have little confidence we’ll see such an approach in my lifetime.

So, hooray for (fleeting) boobies, and let’s hope they don’t fuck it up for broadcast regulation in total!