Prometheus Press Center

Prometheus De-Livered

Our Periodic Newsletter

Contents

[Free Radio Hovers in Limbo, Prometheus Tangles with the Big Broadcasters]
[Interference Fears Unwarrented]
[More Technical Developments]
[More Prometheus News]

[Grassroots Radio Stations to Help Show LPFMs the Ropes]
[Public Access Preference Campaign]
[Avoiding Competing Applications]
[Resources for LPFMs]

Free Radio Hovers in Limbo,
Prometheus Tangles with the Big Broadcasters

Across the country, thousands of people have defied federal laws by starting a radio station without a license. Even in the midst of a government crackdown which has shutdown over 500 stations in the past two years, hundreds more continue to operate illegal community radio stations across the country. Litigation between the Federal Communications Commission and these unlicensed stations has proliferated as well, with some cases coming dangerously close to forcing the FCC to reconsider the fundamental nature of its licensing system.

In response to these challenges, FCC Chairman William Kennard has become a powerful advocate of a system of licensing for low power radio stations. In doing this, he hopes to save the FCC's regulatory framework for radio, expand community access to radio, and sap the political strength of the pirate movement.

Pirate radio operators are left in a peculiar position. The proposed FCC reform could be a spectacular victory for community radio and citizen access. Thousands of new stations could be licensed as a result of this move by the FCC. In Philadelphia, for example, eight channels have been identified which could be used by community groups. The FCC has basically admitted that we are completely right on the issues of diversity of voices in the media, and have adopted many of our argument in their advocacy for a new service. A majority of the commissioners have stated that they intend to pass LPFM if the interference concerns of the broadcasters are proven to be groundless.

Despite the positive changes at the FCC, the new licenses are far from a sure thing. The National Association of Broadcasters, the main trade group that represents the existing broadcasters, has pulled out all the stops trying to crash the proposal. They have prodded a number of their minion congressmen and senators to yank the FCC's chain and try to prevent the new service from happening. These mendacious sots have also spent at least a half a million dollars on technical studies in a vain attempt to prove that 50 watt stations can cause serious interference to 50,000 watt stations. The bean counters sitting on top of National Public Radio have shown their true colors by siding with big business against microradio.

A group of former microbroadcasters (including programmers from several pirate stations that were busted, including Radio Mutiny, Free Radio Gainesville, Free Radio Allston, Steal This Radio, WJMZ, and Free Radio Memphis) have been working hard at winning a new legalized community radio service. The Prometheus Radio Project has conducted tours visiting dozens of cities throughout the North East, participated in research, and helped to sponsor a major technical study that proves that the interference claims of the big broadcasters are groundless. If Low Power FM is adopted, we will serve as a regional training center, and assist in the launching of as many excellent new stations as we humanly can.

Even though community radio will have won a great victory if LPFM comes true, it will still not be easy. There will not be very many frequencies in the big cities, and competition will be fierce between community groups, businesses, churches, and Howard Stern wannabes. Prometheus Radio Project exists to make sure that as many non-profit, non-commercial, public access style stations with mixed format get these licenses, rather than the opportunists who will use our hard fought campaign to profiteer off of radio, like the existing commercial broadcasters.

Prometheus has adopted a bizarre strategy in this movement. We are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the FCC proposal. Our particular role has been to focus our efforts on making sure that LPFM is legalized in the best way possible, and that people are prepared to make the most of this opportunity. We know very well that we may be wasting our time by preparing for a service that is never adopted. If that happens, the Free Radio movement is back where it started and Prometheus will probably reconsider its mission (and we'll all feel kind of dumb). However, we think it would be a really tragic if we DO win and the whole microradio service is scooped up by a few money-grubbing corporations, or by satellite fed evangelist stations because community groups were not prepared to take advantage of our victory.

An excerpt from our recent press release
regarding the interference study:

STUDY FINDS CLEAR SIGNALS FOR COMMUNITY RADIO

Low Power FM advocates release study showing interference concerns to be unwarranted

According to a technology study released by a consortium of LPFM advocates, implementation of a Low Power FM ("LPFM") radio service will not lead to a significant increase in interference with current, full-power stations.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently considering the creation of a new, low power radio service. As part of its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC requested studies of commercially available radio receivers to examine whether more stations could be supported on the dial without increased interference. The possibility that new, low power radio stations could interfere with full power stations currently in operation has been the most significant argument impeding adoption of the new service by the FCC. The main concern is not that low power transmitters are somehow "bad"- rather, the concern is that low quality consumer receivers will have inadequate selectivity to differentiate between signals, causing interference.

10 commonly available radio receivers were exposed to incrementally greater levels of potentially conflicting signals, simulating the conditions that would result from the presence of LPFM stations on the dial. The results suggested that there was room to relax current FCC interference rules. What little interference potential was found for low power transmitters was of far smaller magnitude than interference which is routinely caused by the large radio stations. LPFM, particularly 100 watts or less, will not create a substantial change in the interference environment of radio.

Check out the full text of our recent press release with details about our technical studies of interference.

Full copies of the Broadcast Signal Lab study and its executive summary are available online through the FCC website.

Enter "99-25" in the field "docket #. " Enter "National Lawyers Guild" in the field "filed on behalf of " You can also receive the study by sending an e-mail to: Alan Korn.

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More technical developments:

Over 1700 people have formally commented to the FCC on LPFM, and many of these comments were detailed and technical. Aside from the already beaten dead horse of second and third adjacent channel interference, the main technical issue left is how LPFM will affect the transition to digital broadcasting. Within the next few years, the US intends to start allowing radio stations to broadcast both digital and analog signals, allowing people who buy new receivers to improve the quality of their reception (according to the industry: So far, tests on the prototypes of the transmitters and the receivers have been a major flop). It seems clear to most observers that there is little potential for LPFM to cause a problem with digital radio, because digital radio has been designed with two redundant digital data streams on the channel. In the unlikely event that one stream were interfered with by an LPFM station (or anything else, for that matter), the digital broadcast would still be picked up on the other data stream. For more background on digital radio transition, see . Within the month, we will put out another piece of writing giving more details on this issue. The coming transition to digital has many, complicated implications for LPFM broadcasting. If you're interested in radio technical issues, contact us and get involved as we formulate our response to the radio industries' self-interested proposal.

The FCC has just released a rulemaking on this issue. While there are some promising aspects, they do not seem to be very serious about using the potential of digital for public service or creating more radio voices.

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More Prometheus News

Prometheus Radio Project has a number of big projects coming up that you may want to get involved in:

Grassroot Radio Stations To Help Show LPFMs The Ropes

PRP will be researching and establishing a list of grassroots community radio stations that are willing to pair up with a new LPFM and lend a hand while they are trying to establish themselves. Many community radio stations do not see LPFM as a threat to their funding base, but rather are eager to work with new broadcasters to help them figure out how to run a good communty radio station. If you'd like to join our list of sister stations or want more info, contact Prometheus.

Public Access Preference Campaign:

One major push that Prometheus has worked on has been to give a first shot at the new LPFM licenses for public access style operations. Under our proposal, public access centers, youth groups, libraries, schools and free standing commmunity radio stations would get the first crack at LPFM licenses if they certify that they will operate their station like public access cable TV: any member of the public who wants a show, meets the organizations requirements and follows the stations rules can do a show. The Alliance for Community Media has joined us in our request to license public access media first. Here's an excerpt from our comments to the FCC. You can see the full text, plus some sample letters under Public Access Campaign.

Competing Applications Are Best Avoided
Through A Three Tiered Filing Window System

We believe that a key solution to the problems associated with the relative dearth of licenses available in major metropolitan markets is the concept of Public Access, modeled upon elements of the operations of cable TV public access channels. In light of the relatively small number of licenses which will be feasible in major metropolitan areas, the advantages of a strong preference for "Access" style operations are many. Instead of serving one interest, an access station serves all interests that feel the need to communicate, and presents the audience with hundreds of new programming options on a single channel. There are many individuals, organizations and interests in our society that would find communication through a weekly radio show useful and important, but for whom the actual independent operation of an entire station would be unfeasible. These interests are well served by access style radio stations.

We believe that non-profit cable access organizations, a sector with over twenty years of experience administering public forums, are uniquely qualified to guide the way in the administration of this scarce resource in the public interest. If LPFM goes though without such a preference for the civic institutions devoted to freedom of communication, it is likely that the service that will emerge will merely serve the next few profitable demographics, rather than the entire civic culture. While we, in principle, have no objection to radio stations that serve one particular musical taste, religious grouping, or organization, the advantage of Public Access style operation of a radio station in a situation of spectrum scarcity is great.

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Resources for LPFM

Another plan that we've started work on is to develop a set of resources for new stations coming on the air. It will be designed for post-legalization, but of course much information would be useful to pirates now if they should choose to read such a thing. I include the topic list below. We have not yet decided the format for disseminating info on these things- maybe a pamphlet series, maybe a well linked website, maybe a course of study for a week long "Prometheus Radio Institute," perhaps even a book.

Here's a list of topics we intend to cover: Legal issues; Organizational; Digital radio; The Internet; Content; Outreach; Money;Underwriting guidelines; Basic Electronics; Audio; History of Broadcasting; Todays politics and economics of broadcasting; Community broadcasting; Tough group dynamics, and pre-measures to prevent them; Surviving growth and institutionalization; How to interact with the FCC and other regulatory bodies; Competitive license situations; Free Speech, Ignorant People and Your Station; Translator issues; Writing a mission statement; Issues in local origination