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Radio activists take on FCC, media
Community Radio Sues the FCC
BY PETE TRIDISH and JACKLYN FORD
to be published in the Community Media Review
On June 3rd, 2003, the republican-led FCC announced plans to ease already slack regulation on media ownership limits. Three months later, big media stood smirking as TV conglomerates poised to buy newspaper chains, and newspapers chains crouched ready to purchase radio empires. The employees of the media sector braced for another round of ''efficiency'', in which potentially thousands of jobs could be scrapped in the coming shake-ups. In Philadelphia, the ordinarily scruffy activists at Prometheus Radio Project put on our borrowed suits and black sneakers (that could almost pass for dress shoes) and went to court. With our attorneys from Media Access Project, we sued the FCC for a stay of the implementation of these potentially devastating rules.
Prometheus Radio Project has been fighting for community radio since our start in the late 1990s. At that time, it was considered a political impossibility for low power radio stations to get a license to start a community radio station. The FCC had frozen non-commercial radio licensing since the early 1980s. The agency had taken a long-standing policy of benign indifference to the unprofitable portion of the FM band. However, push for change was brewing in local communities. Radio pirates across the political spectrum decided to cast their defiant radio broadcasts as acts of civil disobedience against a wealth-based broadcasting system.
In 1996, pro-corporate legislation lifted restrictions on nationwide ownership of broadcast outlets, making it possible for a corporation to own an unlimited number of radio stations across the country. This allowed politically connected corporations to buy up local media outlets by the bucket-full, while independent owners went out of business attempting to compete with the chain owners. These corporate media moguls have enormous power and frequently have other business interests and interconnected agendas. Not only do they control the channels through which most Americans understand public debates, but they are also engaged in a cutthroat race to the bottom to gain audience and build advertising revenue. Many saw the legalization of LPFM as a small step that the FCC could take to rebuild community radio on an increasingly barren media landscape.
After years of public comment and engineering studies, the combined pressure from media reformers and direct action activists prevailed to win a partial victory for media democracy. On January 26th, 2000, the Federal Communications Commission voted to create a new low power FM (LPFM) service. The new rules allowed small non-profit groups, libraries, churches and community organizations to apply for licenses to operate simple, inexpensive community based local radio stations. Individuals could not apply for licenses, but any group could apply. Over the course of two years, a slew of so-called ''special interest groups,'' including unions, civil rights groups, environmental organizations and other community programs, applied for licenses from the FCC. These groups prove to be much better stewards of broadcast frequencies because they tend to be fair-minded and open to debate, albeit opinionated. LPFM stations have much greater freedom in programming choices - and also freedom not to run the most titillating and pandering forms of programs just to bump up their audience numbers.
It is a strangely myopic view that corporations can be impartial, disinterested managers and stewards of the broadcast spectrum. Today's corporate behemoths have very large stakes in the outcomes of public policy debates. And in what seems to be an obvious breach of the guardianship of the airwaves entrusted to the agency by the public, the FCC has largely supported the shift toward a Metabolifted, candy-coated, democratically bankrupt, corporate hegemony. As of November 2003, about 250 of these new independent spirited stations will be on the air, and many hundreds more are on the way.
Despite the excitement generated by these new stations, those on the air today are actually the lucky exceptions. Most groups with community radio dreams have been waiting for years without any action by the FCC. Many other groups were not even given an opportunity to apply. The FCC's original proposal for LPFM would have opened up thousands more frequencies to community groups . Unfortunately, Congress (under pressure from incumbent broadcasters) snuck the ''Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act'' into a ''must-pass'' spending bill in late 2000. Under the new rules, written by the broadcasters, and passed by the Congress, there were no new stations allowed in the top fifty urban markets.
On September 3rd, we won a stay against the FCC. Billions of dollars of big media deals were put on hold until the courts can rule on the FCC's brave new world of media de-regulation in February of 2004. In the mean time, Prometheans and media activists for democracy will focus our efforts on repealing the ''Broadcast Preservation Act'' allowing community radio into the cities. Our other main goal is to push Congress to pass permanent legislation that will protect the public from rampant media consolidation of ownership. Get in touch with us to learn how you can help with these two important battles in Congress!
