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Local Community Radio bills in Congress

D

DubbaDon

HR 1147 and S 592 are working their way through Congress that will would repeal restrictions Congress imposed on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2001 and allow them to make licenses available to low-powered FM radio stations at the local community level.

It appears as if the bills are telling the FCC to relax 3rd adjacent channel restriction.

The idea is to return radio to local communities that have lost their service due to maximization and consolidation.
 
Bet NPR will file comments or lobby against these bills. NPR is all for diversity except for when it comes to communities having local programming. And the NAB and NCAB both want to maintain spectrum integrity while defending the right of large corporations to own 4 class c FMs in a single market. These bills attempt to allow local groups the ability to offer local programming to communities across the USA. Localism, what a concept, and what a threat to the republic this will be!
 
This may prove interesting. It is hard to figure out the intent of the various political players, and where these stations will end up operating if the 3rd adjacent is repealed.

When you say "local communities" will get radio to replace what they lost through maximization and consolidation.... that sounds like you expect the thrust to be in maybe rural areas, smaller towns. And that would happen in some cases.

But when you look at the "players" who have been forceful in this movement, some of them have a vision of LPFMs serving some neighborhood in large cities.... neighborhoods which are now technically covered with existing signal that is "five by five" but not serving the perceived needs of the individual neighborhood. There is this vision of reaching an ethnic group or maybe a neighborhood highly populated by artistic folks, or maybe a pocket of low income people.

Many of the rural communities could squeeze in a channel under the present rules. Small communities which are within the umbrella of a major metro market cannot squeeze in a channel under the present rules.

So when the dust settles, what kinds of communities will end up being served by a change in the law?
 
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