Canadian Community Station Threatened by US Godcaster

In the US grandfathered Class D low-power FM stations (under 100 watts) and translator stations–which only rebroadcast the signal of a full-power station–are the only classes of broadcast stations that don’t enjoy any protection for their spot on the dial. If a full-power station wants to increase power, move its transmitter or make other changes where it would infringe on or take over a Class D or translator station’s frequency, then it’s too bad for the Class D. Apparently, it’s the same situation for some stations in Canada.

But it’s even worse for community radio CJAM at the University of Windsor in Ontario. This 1000 watt station never received “protected” status from the CRTC (the Canadian FCC) due to pressure from the FCC over interference concerns. Now its existence is threatened by a station soon to be licensed by the FCC south of the border on the same frequency, 91.5 FM, in China Township, Michigan.

This is the second such threat to the station’s existence. The first came from inside Canada when the CBC wanted to set up a station on CJAM’s frequency. That situation was resolved when the CBC chose a different frequency.

CJAM is now petitioning the CRTC to move to a different frequency, 99.1 FM, and receive protected status there.

To the best of my knowledge CJAM is the only community station in the Windsor or Detroit area, and it would be a shame to lose such a diverse community voice after 25 years of service. It would be especially tragic to lose CJAM to a cookie-cutter, statewide “positive hits” radio network repeater blaring in from the States. CJAM is asking listeners to send letters to the CRTC and Industry Canada on its behalf:

CJAM has identified a new signal – 99.1 FM – that could afford the station protected status and has moved forward with applications for this new signal to Industry Canada and the CRTC. The application currently before the CRTC is now open for public comment, and this is where we need you, our community of listeners, programmers and volunteers to make your voice heard. If you value CJAM and community radio in Windsor and Detroit, please express your support of our application.

Letters may be submitted electronically at the CRTC website , by fax at 819-994-0218, or by conventional mail to the following address: CRTC Ottawa Ontario K1A 0N2.

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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Talkin’ Genachowski, FCC Heir Apparent, on Thursday’s radioshow

Ace FCC watcher Matthew Lasar will be my guest on this week’s radioshow to talk about the new FCC Chairman apparent, Julius Genachowski. Matthew will lay some knowledge about Genachowski’s past and help us polish the crystal ball to see what communications future this cat will bring us.

Tune in to the show live at 9 PM CST, Thursday, Jan. 15 on WNUR 89.3 FM Evanston-Chicago, IL, live stream at wnur.org. Or you can catch the archive later at radio.mediageek.net or on any of the other 15 stations that carry the program, like KWMD, 90.7 FM Kasilof, AK & 104.5 Anchorage, AK or Radio Free Moscow, KRFP 92.5 FM, Moscow, ID.

Reboot the FCC? Better, Democratize the FCC

A week ago Prof. Larry Lessig penned a provocative little column for Newsweek that apparently was supposed to be titled “Blow Up the FCC,” but was published as “Reboot the FCC.” In essence, Lessig argues for the FCC to be done away with, replaced by an “Innovation Environment Protection Agency,” focused on curtailing monopoly power in telecommunications and staffed by professions without any industry ties.

Indeed, Lessig provoked a response across the media reform blogosphere and elsewhere. I’m a little late to the game in adding my comments (a whole week is like a decade for a blog!), but I’ve wanted to think about it for a while before firing off.

As John and I discussed on last night’s radioshow, I think replacing the FCC is problematic, primarily because I don’t trust another government agency to necessary do a better job. Why would I think an iEPA would be any better than the current EPA, which has been hamstrung under the Bush administration in a far more damaging way than the Bush FCC?

The ban on industry ties is the most interesting amongst Lessig’s proposals, though one which would also be difficult to achieve in practical terms. Nevertheless, it’s valuable for Lessig to jump-start the debate like this, regardless of the details.

What has been left out of the debate is the very fundamental notion of democracy. The left-progressive reaction to Lessig’s salvo has been along the lines of, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” or more reactionarily fearful of losing the few public interest regulations that still have teeth. The libertarian reaction has been mostly “Atta boy, but you don’t go far enough!” Unfortunately it gets boiled down to regulation vs. deregulation or government vs. no government.

What it really should be is public accountability vs. industry solidarity. For all of its flaws the FCC is still a nominally democratic agency, with five commissioners who actually vote on proceedings, who represent the two major parties. While the majority represent the party in the executive, there is still a reasonably powerful minority that can’t be steamrolled constantly, even in the unlikely event that the majority commissioners march in utter lockstep.

The uptick in citizen activism on media and communication issues has only forced the FCC to become more responsive, though not nearly as much as we’d like. Compared to the USDA or DHS the FCC seems absolutely transparent and accountable. Yet I agree that the FCC is still a captured regulator where commissioners and high level staff have a disproportionate incentive to feather their beds for a soft landing in the private sector after their public service tour.

There’s a strong side of me that would love nothing more but to see the FCC go away, except that I don’t trust the so-called “free market” to result in anything better for the public. We’re not starting at ground zero, and the current inequities in communication–especially the oligopolistic control of broadcast and telecomm–would only be exacerbated by an FCC-less US. While I do like the idea of a “reboot” with a new agency, I’m not sure this kind of creative destruction would be sufficiently creative nor destructive. In what way is the Department of Homeland Security that different from the separated pre-2001 TSA and FEMA?

Instead, I think the focus needs to be the increased democratization of regulatory bodies, making changes that require greater public responsiveness and accountability. What if FCC commissioners were elected? Sure, it flies in the face of our current executive practices, but it also means we could end up with an FCC that is far more representative of the public interest than either the president or congress. Less radically, what if public comment requirements were strengthened and the equal of anti-lobbying rules enacted, along the lines of Lessig’s suggestions for an iEPA? Combined with restricting the industry ties of FCC staff I think you’d see a lot of changes at the Commission.

Of course we can’t expect the FCC to become that much better than any other federal agency, not to mention the Congress and the president. There’s an overall lack of accountability and democracy in the US government in general. It’s unreasonable to expect the FCC or iEPA to be any more accountable than the executive or your state’s senators. Without wider reform or reconstruction of the nation’s politics we are not going to see a substantially better FCC. Following the libertarian argument, doing away with the FCC entirely is only useful if we do away with government entirely, which, to me, is only useful if we also dismantle corporate power in the process, truly leveling the playing field. That’s the plan that would get my vote if it were truly on the table.

Short of that, reforming the FCC we have is our best bet. With our current corporatized government a better, more responsive and accoutable FCC is better than no FCC at all.

Is The End of Television The Beginning of a New Resistance?

I’ve discussed the idea of reclaiming the analog TV spectrum when the digital changeover happens in February, and talked to Free Radio Berkeley’s Stephen Dunifer about his unlicensed TV transmitter kits. Now it looks like someone is ready to put the idea into action with The End of Television project.

The project is accepting video submissions on miniDV and VHS of programs that will air on VHF channel 2 in Pittsburgh, PA on the day of analog TV turnoff, Feb. 17, 2009.

Of course there’s a small element of risk in pre-announcing the broadcast, but the flip-side is that it’s difficult to pull of a collaborative art project without some degree of publicity. I hope that the folks behind the project don’t intend to broadcast from the address they’ve listed for sending the videos. Yet, if it’s just a one-day broadcast the risks are pretty slim, especially since I’m guessing the FCC will have it’s hands pretty full that day depending on how smoothly the changeover goes. I wonder how many phone calls field offices will be taking from puzzled viewers whose analog sets all of a sudden quit working (except for channel 2).

It would be great if TV microbroadcasters across the country would take the abandoned analog airwaves on Feb. 17 as a coordinated act of resistance against planned obsolescence and the accompanying handover of free but enormously lucrative digital spectrum to the nation’s major broadcasters (who then tried to lobby to keep their analog channelspace, too).

I’ve already exchanged emails with Ian, one of the principals behind the project, and plan to do an email interview for the blog, followed up with a phone interview for the radioshow closer to Feb. 17.

On this week’s radioshow: White Spaces Are Go!

On this week’s radioshow I’ll be speaking with Tim Karr, Campaign Director at Free Press and a contributor to the Huffington Post. We discuss the Tuesday vote at the FCC approving the use of white spaces for wireless broadband, along with a brief look at what an Obama White House means for media reform.

The show airs live tonight, Thursdays, 9 – 10 PM Central time on WNUR 89.3 FM Evanston-Chicago, IL and online at WNUR.org. You can catch it on Friday at 5:30 PM on Community Radio WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign-Urbana, IL, which also has a live stream.

If you can’t catch the live streams, the show will be available at the radioshow website this weekend, and airs on thirteen other community stations next week.

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.

Catching Up

It seems like all of my available mediageek energy has been poured into the radioshow lately, the result of having a firm weekly commitment to dozen stations. Were the radioshow a non-broadcast podcast I’m not so certain I would be so diligent.

At least I can say that I’ve had a couple of great guests recently that you really should check out if you haven’t already listened to the shows.

Faythe Levine was my guest on August 22 where we talked about her upcoming documentary film and book, both named Handmade Nation. The project’s nice new website just went online. Faythe was also featured in today’s New York Times Home section in an article looking at the DIY craft phenomenon and connecting it to her own home design. She scanned in the print article to her Flickr site.

One of the hardest working folks in the media reform, Gigi Sohn, was last week’s guest. Gigi is the executive director of Public Knowledge, a public interest group that does great work on issues like spectrum use and preservation, intellectual property and broadcast ownership. On this show we talked about the FCC’s recent sanctions against Comcast, and why that decision deserves recognition as an historical moment in the modern media reform movement.

I have another interesting interview slated for this week’s radioshow, too. My friend Sarah Kanouse will tell us about Voices of America, a participatory radio remix project she put together along with Lee Azzarello of free103point9. You can listen live to the show when it first airs on community radio WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign, IL on Friday at 5:30 PM CDT, either over the airwaves or over the internet. It will be available online at the radioshow page shortly thereafter.

Catching up with friends

My pals on the internets have been keeping busy informing the masses about what’s really going on with overlords of our media environment. If you don’t keep up with Matthew Lasar’s Ars Technica articles or John Anderson’s DIYmedia missives, here’s some recent posts you should check out:

• Matthew reports that FCC Democrat Jonathan Adelstein is now on board to approve the Sirius/XM satellite radio merger, but only with significant conditions. This makes him commissioner #2 after Chairman Martin. Matthew also digs up some interesting dirt about Commissioner Tate tapping industry lobbyists for advice.
• John comments on the “glimmer” of hope that the FCC would take real action against Comcast for its BitTorrent filtering being downgraded to a “mirage.”
  

  After about a day and a half of happy-buzz, Martin and the FCC clarified their position – Comcast will not be substantially penalized in any meaningful fashion for its data-discrimination practices. There will be no further investigation, no priority inquiry, not even a monetary forfeiture: instead, the FCC will require the company to “disclose” its bandwidth-management practices and “encourage” Comcast to adopt more “protocol-agnostic” methods of shaping the traffic that flows over its pipes.

• Back in June John noted the current trends in FCC enforcement action against unlicensed broadcasters, observing that “the FCC is on relative track to meet its record-breaking enforcement effort of last year.” However, the FCC isn’t collecting any more financial forfeitures, and
  

  Although the FCC is getting more diligent about reducing the time between finding out about a pirate and making contact with the station, there is no obvious correlation between a diminution of stations on the air as a result.

FCC Hearing on Broadband and the Digital Future Going On Now

If you enjoy a good FCC hearing now and again, you can watch the hearing live online:
http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/#jul21

If you don’t quite have the four and a half hours to spare you should be able to watch an archive on the FCC website within some reasonable timeframe after the hearing is over. If you prefer a digest version, I intend to play some excerpts on this coming Friday’s radioshow.

If you prefer a text digest, at least one Twitter user is live-tweeting the hearing from Pittsburgh.

And, I write this under the assumption that somehow anything at this hearing will make a difference….