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Prometheus Press Center
Low Power FM Radio in the News
Billboard Radio News Reports NAB Filing on LPFM
After asking for an extension of the comment period on the Notice for Proposed Rulemaking, FCC Docket # 99-25, the National Association for Broadcasters file their comments on Low Power FM service. Click here to read Billboard Radio Monitor's article about the filing, and find out what the NAB thinks about translators and expanding LPFM service to the FCC's original vision for the service! It ain't pretty!
Prometheus Press Release
Prometheus Asks the FCC To Freeze Translator Applications
On March 9th, Prometheus along with the United Church of Christ, Media Access Project, REC Neworks, and other groups filed a petition before the FCC requesting a freeze on the granting of all translator licenses. During the March 2003 application window, two front corporations, Radio Assist Ministry and Edgewater Broadcasting, in Twin Falls, Idaho applied for more than 4000 translator applications. They later used a third corporation, World Radio Link, Inc., to resell these translators all over the country. Translators are intended to be used to extend the range of a local broadcaster, and fill in gaps in their signal. They have instead been used to create networks fed by satellites. These use frequencies that could be made available to LPFM stations. Besides reselling licenses being a violation of FCC rules, these translator licenses block local community LPFM applications.
Read the entire HTML Formatted press release here.
Prometheus Barnraising in the News>
WSCA-LP is on the air! Read great local press about this new, exciting station here:
Longtime Activist Granny D Praises Portsmouth Community Radio!
Portsmouth Community Radio On The Air!
Prometheus Barnraising in the News
Prometheus' upcoming barnraising in Portsmouth, New Hampshire was featured in the Providence Phoenix! Read the article here.
LPFM Legislation in the News
The Senate Commerce Committee passed bill s2505 on Thursday, which would make it possible for thousands of new LPFM stations to take root.
Go here for a Reuters article covering the decision!
Prometheus Press Release
Senate Commerce Committee Votes to Expand LPFM!
Grassroots Organizers' Voices Trump Big Broadcast Lobbyists', For Now
The United States Senate Commerce Committee voted to approve a major bill on Thursday, opening the way for Congress to substantially expand the number of community media outlets in the United States. The bill is designed to allow thousands more Low Power FM Community radio stations to reach Americans in cities, and all across the country. An amendment by Senator Burns of Montana to further delay Low Power radio was defeated, but an amendment imposing special additional interference requirements for New Jersey was passed.
Read our HTML formatted press release here.
Prometheus Barnraising in the News
Portsmouth Barnraisers Need Support!
A diverse assembly of community members is needed to get the New Hampshire LPFM off the ground
"The Portsmouth Community Radio WSCA-LP 106.1 F.M., is holding a Radio Station Barnraising in September and is looking for folks to help with food, offer a road-worthy car, or perhaps a backyard for a barbecue for a hundred or so folk... The three-day barnraising is scheduled for Sept. 10, 11 and 12, and is the last step to hitting the air!"
Go here to read more!
Prometheus in the News
Court Decision Cheers Radio Activists
The Philadelphia Inquirer's word on the media-ownership case and Prometheus.
Americans have another chance to tell regulators what they expect from the owners of radio and TV stations, activists said. "We want to see a comprehensive slate of hearings across the United States," said Josh Silver, managing director of Free Press, a Northampton, Mass., media-policy organization.
Go here to read more!
Legal Press Release
Prometheus Realease: Federal Court Preserves Stay of Rules!
Media deregulation halted in its tracks!
"The rush to media consolidation approved by the FCC last June was wrong as a matter of law and policy," said Commissioner Copps in a released statement. "The commission has a second chance to do the right thing."
Go here (Microsoft Word Document version) or here (html version) to read more!
Prometheus in the News
Small Players Want Their Share of Air Waves!
The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the latest developments in the ongoing LPFM battle.
"The number of low-power stations broadcasting everything from Pentecostal sermons to polkas could grow by the thousands if a bill to expand low-power service to urban areas introduced last week into the US Senate by Sens. John McCain (R) of Arizona) and Patrick J. Leahy (D) of Vermont) is approved.
Christian Science Monitor Article
Legislative Press Release
Prometheus Release: Legislation Proposed to Expand LPFM Service!
"On June 4th, Congress members introduced legislation that could allow the licensing and construction of thousands of Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations in America's cities. Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain introduced the legislation, and Senator Leahy co-sponsored it. The bill is designed to remove barriers from the FM broadcast spectrum that have previously prevented community groups from building LPFM stations, especially in cities."
Read here (Microsoft Word Document version) or here (html version) for more!
Low Power FM Radio in the News
Wired News' Take on Mircroradio!
"It's been extremely empowering to follow the DIY ethic," she said. "What's even more exciting is that I am continually inspired to learn more about radio technology ... and I've really started to think about the facets of society that constrict our ability to communicate. When others hear of the crazy projects I do, they get inspired too. It's infectious."
Read here for more!
Low Power FM Radio in the News
WEAK-FM on the Air in Athens, Georgia!
A station that hearkens back to the days when disc jockeys picked songs they liked, not just the ones on some narrow 20-tune playlist. A station that serves up such an overwhelming variety of artists and styles that you could listen for a month and never hear the same song twice. And for good measure, it even has cute jingles and a funny radio soap opera.
Prometheus in the News
Third District Court Oral Arguments!
Prometheus and Media Access Project present oral arguments in the stay of FCC's media deregulation package, in Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia, PA. Read an AP article about it here.
Prometheus in the News
An Article by Steven Pierce -- look for it in the upcoming Progressive Magazine
The effort to organize workers in Immokalee is the local component of a two pronged strategy: the other is to bring the struggle to the outside world.
RADIO CONSCIENCIA IS ON THE AIR!
Prometheus in Pictures
Photos from the Immokalee Barn-Raising on the Web!
Jacques-Jean Tiziou took some amazing photographs of our most recent radio barn-raising, with the Coalition of Immokalee Wrokers in Immokalee, Florida. Experience the hilarity, the ribaldry, and the spunk and moxie that went into setting up Radio Consciencia.
Prometheus in the News
Station Aims to Give Voice to Migrant Workers.
The Miami Herald's coverage of Prometheus' most recent barnraising, in December.
In an effort to give a voice to migrant workers, dozens of radio techies from around the country descended on the farming town of Immokalee over the weekend to build a community radio station. The radio ''barn-raising'' will probably further raise the profile of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group founded in 1996 that has received national attention in recent years for demanding better working conditions for its members, leading a boycott against Taco Bell and exposing slavery conditions on some of Florida's farms.
Prometheus in the News
Barn-Raising on Air: the Prometheus Radio Project
from The Dominion, Canada's Grassroots National Newspaper
by Prometheus volunteer Janna Graham!
In 1998, the FCC literally kicked down the studio door and seized Radio Mutiny's transmitter. As the FCC dismantled what was Philadelphia's only volunteer-run, community radio station, Prometheus Radio Project emerged from the cinders.
Prometheus Newsletter Article
Radio Activists Take On FCC, Media
To be published in the Community Media Review
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.
Article by Pete Tridish and Jacklyn Ford
Prometheus
in the News
Indie Radio Beats the FCC
Rolling Stone
Touches on Ownership Stay and Radio Barnraisings, Focuses on Pete's Clothes
Touches on Ownership Stay and Radio Barnraisings, Focuses on Pete's Clothes
In September, the Bush administration was on the verge of allowing the nation's largest media companies to further monopolize the public airwaves. Then a former radio pirate and his ragtag political group took on the government -- and won.
Prometheus in the News
Radio Activists Take On FCC, Media
The Chicago Tribune
Covers the Ownership Stay, And Looks to the Future
It's unlikely that executives at Fox, CBS and NBC or the country's most prominent radio and newspaper chains had ever heard of the Prometheus Radio Project, a group of community radio advocates, until early September. That's when a lawyer from the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C., successfully persuaded a federal appeals court in Philadelphia to issue a stay of new FCC rules that make it easier for media companies to buy other media outlets.
Radio Activists Take on FCC, Media
Prometheus Press Release
Prometheus Lawsuit Stays Implementation of New Ownership Rules
Wave of Consolidation Held Back by Federal Appeals Court
Organizers at the Prometheus Radio Project met news of a stay on the Federal Communications Commissions push to deregulate media ownership with enthusiasm yesterday, September 3rd. These new FCC rule changes, changes that would dramatically alter the American media landscape, were blocked from being implemented by the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, in Philadephia, Pennsylvania.
Prometheus in the News
Ouray's Low Power FM Station Featured in Westword!
Westword talks with grassroots radio supporters and Prometheus
In a media world that's in lust with new technology, radio seems thoroughly old-fashioned, the equivalent of a bicyclist competing in the Daytona 500. At times, though, it's still better to be Lance Armstrong than Jeff Gordon. Just ask the pupils and staffers at Ouray High School, located in a gorgeous part of southwestern Colorado.
The Message: Power Up! by Michael Roberts
Prometheus in the News
The Rockland Radio Revolution
The Nation visits a local LPFM
In an age of increasingly consolidated media, in which commercial broadcasters blast thousands of watts over dozens of miles, Rockland, Maine's very own low-power FM station is a beacon of grassroots democracy.
Prometheus in the News
Building Communities on the FM Dial
The Columbia Journalism Review
Examines Low Power FM and Talks With Prometheus
In the increasingly corporate world of radio, low-power FM isn't about how far your signal reaches but how near. These are neighborhood stations with 100-watt signals that travel single-digit miles. They are run by civil rights organizations, by environmental activists, by church groups and school districts. They are voices that have either been pushed out of the radio spectrum or never invited into it, and the appetite for them speaks to a growing need in this country for community.
Low Intensity, High Power
Q&A with Prometheus Radio
News Article
Facing Criticism, F.C.C. Is Thinking Local
By JACQUES STEINBERG, New York Times
With his bid to ease media ownership rules under assault from members
of Congress worried by the prospect of greater consolidation, Michael
K. Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said yesterday
that he would create a task force to study the "localism" of radio and
television stations.
Read More
News Article
Churchton radio station looks to make its mark
By E.B. FURGURSON III, Staff Writer, The Capital
After only few months on the air, low-power radio station WRYR in Churchton
is well on its way to meeting the promise of its call letters and motto:
"We are your radio!"
The all-volunteer, nonprofit station airs a variety of programming around
the clock -- jazz, gospel and bluegrass music and shows on local, political
and environmental issues, American Indian music and philosophy and even
children's literature and music.
Read More
News Article
Low-powered radio station goes on air Saturday
Alain de la Villesbret. November 14,2002. The Daily World.
The new radio station in Opelousas is brought to town by the Southern Development Foundation, the organization behind the Original Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival, and the Prometheus Radio Project, a national broadcast advocacy organization.
Read More
News Article
One Station Under God
By Tucker Teutsch III 11/14/2002
Ask yourself this question: How many times has Clear Channel touched you today? The answer is hard to fathom: With an overwhelming majority of the city's billboards, seven radio stations, two TV stations, and countless Clear Channel promoted and housed events on their way to and from San Antonio, it's probably more often than you think. And the Alamo City is not alone - Clear Channel has a grip on almost every major city in the country, and a foothold in nations around the world.
Read More
News Article
Some Things Considered
By Katy St.Clair, October 30, 2002. East Bay Express.
NPR has been a key player in stifling community broadcasting
Read More
News Article
Digital Radio: Small Guy's Ruin?
By Brad King, October 18, 2002. Wired News.
The noise big radio conglomerates are making about digital radio is likely to drown out community radio stations -- dashing small broadcasters' hopes that the new technology would boost their signal.
Read More
News Article
50 Watts of Freedom
By Chris Womak, September 27, 2002. The Austin Chronicle.
Radio activist Pete Tridish of Philadelphia's Prometheus Radio Project has been traveling across the southern U.S., hoping to spread the free-radio gospel by helping community groups take advantage of the Federal Communication Commission's new Low Power FM license.
Read More
News Article
Transmitting joy at full strength
Operators welcome Hispanic radio station's premiere after years of work
By ALESIA I. REDDING, South Bend Tribune Staff Writer
September 9, 2002.
SOUTH BEND -- The radiant smile that spreads across Eliud Villanueva's face during the first wondrous minutes of life for local station WSBL-LPFM (98.1) makes a mockery of the description "low-power'' radio.
Read More.
Photos and Video
FCC Showdown
Photos and video from the 1998 Pirate Showdown at the FCC. www.sinkers.org/microradio.
News Article
What A Sound Idea
In Oroville, anyone can be a DJ
Jen Cooper -- Bee Correspondent
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Tuesday, October 1, 2002
www.sacbee.com
Inside the recording studio, Jesse Louis is always moving.
The 22-year-old radio DJ nods his head to keep the music's beat. His shoulder-length dreadlocks swing underneath black headphones. If his head isn't bouncing, he's tapping his feet or using two fingers to mix bird sounds with a Pink Floyd CD.
Louis is one of about 50 disc jockeys who volunteer their time every week at Oroville's community radio station, KRBS 107-FM. From Celtic music to poetry readings, from show tunes to spoken dramas, it's radio by the community, for the community.
Read More
News Article
Protester Ejected From NAB Exhibit Floor
As close to a dozen individuals held up signs outside of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center Friday morning protesting Clear Channel and corporate radio, Prometheus Radio activist Hannah Sassaman was
ejected from the convention floor after unfurling a large "Cheap Channel" banner. Sassaman tells R&R her pass, obtained through trade publication Radio World, was confiscated. The former WXPN/Philadelphia staffer then
joined the crowd outside, which was almost outnumbered by uniformed Seattle Police officers. Sandy Johnson, a former Citadel/Modesto, CA employee seeking an LPFM in the market, held up a sign that criticized NAB President/CEO Eddie Fritts, FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Clear
Channel's Lowry Mays and Tom Hicks for their role in what Johnson says is a worsened radio industry following the 1996 Telecom Act. "I was a news director and public affairs director," she says. "Since the Telecom Act, we've seen a lot of changes. We don't have any local news or public affairs shows anymore in Modesto." Johnson says her desire for an LPFM signal was hindered by a third-adjacency signal issue and that she's not heard anything from the FCC on her petition in two years.
Blurb from Radio and Records.
Read more related articles and blurbs here
Press Release
Low Power FM Radio Debuts At National Conference
WRYR FM97.5, one of the first of the controversial new low power FM (LPFM) radio stations, will take to the Maryland airwaves in mid-February. The debut of the station will take place during a conference of low power radio supporters, licensees, and station applicants.
Prometheus in the News
"Arundel group to launch low-power radio station"
The Baltimore Sun offers a preview of our upcoming Radio Barn Raising
South Arundel Citizens for Responsible Development (SACReD) "is organizing a radio "barn-raising" for early next year to get the station on the air. The event will bring together volunteers from Prometheus and from other organizations interested in starting low-power stations. Over that weekend, the participants will literally put the station together and flip the switch at WRYR. "This is a grassroots organization," said Deale resident Joe Gibson, the station's volunteer program director. "That's where all good things start, with the heart of the people."
Press Release
Federal Appeals Court Rules Congressional Restriction on Licenses for Microbroadcasters Violates First Amendment
Center for Constitutional Rights Wins Battle For Community and Grassroots Based Radio
The United States Court Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled today that the Congressional restriction under the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act that bars individuals previously engaged in microbroadcasting from ever being eligible for a low-power broadcasting license violates the First Amendment.
Read the Release
Read the Reuters Article
Making Waves
Our February Issue
All the latest about low-power FM and the Prometheus Radio Project.
News about the upcoming Barn Raising, plans for a new activist agenda on low-power FM, a demonstration at the FCC this March, and so much more!
Get Prometheus De-livered in the comfort of your own electronic mail box -- register online
New Article
Frequency Free-for-All
Getting a legal, low-power FM station on the air is easier said than done.
"Paul Saunders is a rarity: an applicant for a license to run a low-power FM (LPFM) radio station who actually stands a good chance of being awarded one by the Federal Communications Commission."
