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	Prometheus Home					Prometheus Release FCC Vote on Low-power radio Will microradio be nothing but another venue for the corporations to hawk their shoddy merchandise to the American public?

		Prometheus Press Releases Prometheus Lawsuit Stays Implementation of New Ownership Rules September 4, 2003 Study Shows Interference Claims Are Red Herring July 13, 2003 More Releases Prometheus in the News Low Power, High Intensity Columbia Journalism Review Prometheus has played a significant role in the struggle by community groups to establish low-power radio stations - a struggle that has involved the FCC, the National Association of Broadcasters, and National Public Radio. Read the Q&A with Petri Opposition to Big Media could invigorate low-power FM radio. Salon.com "Low-power radio stations give voice to diversity of 'underserved' towns" The Denver Post "No Power to the People" Scientific American takes a look at the low-power FM debate Scientific American studies claims that Low-power FM radio will cause unacceptable interference and concludes that "congress may have been reacting more to political pressure than technical data, which suggest that whatever interference LPFM stations generate will be too low to matter." More Articles Prometheus Articles Special Interest Noise The NAB/NPR attempt to dupe Congress on interference More Articles				January 28, 1999 The FCC publicly released today a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on legalizing low power broadcasting in the United States. The NPRM has been long awaited among community groups hoping to gain access to the airwaves. If the proposal is a good one, and is not defeated by pressure from the National Association of Broadcasters, Low Power FM radio broadcasting (LPFM) could become legal soon. "We are happy that the Commission seems to finally be getting serious about Low Power FM. It only took them twenty years to decide to listen to what thousands of individuals and community organizations have been saying about the need for neighborhood radio. Pirate radio stations will keep popping up on the dial until the rules for licensing are more fair. It is in all parties interest to make a Low Power FM service that will really work- if the new rules are just a dog and pony show, there can be little doubt that widespread radio piracy will continue unabated" says Diane Imelda Fleming (a.k.a.The Condom Lady, a community health educator from The Station Formerly Known As Mutiny in West Philadelphia). If reasonable rules are set in place, though, Prometheus Radio Project will encourage to abide by them, and we'll be working hard to assist the many pirates and community groups that need access to the airwaves in their applications for licenses. There's nothing we'd like to see better than an orderly transition to a new way of doing things, by all the parties in this protracted, bitter struggle." says Prometheus organizer Pete triDish. "I'm going to break open my piggy bank and see if I have enough money for a membership in the NAB! I hope that all their resources will work as well for us as they did againt us..." "Today's microradio activists take to heart the ideals and tactics of the civil rights movement " says fellow Prometheus organizer Greg Ruggiero. "You see the same kind of grassroots organizing, the same willingness to use non-violent resistance, and the same commitment to equal access and opportunities... activists had to force the government to examine why corporations have access to the public airwaves, but the public themselves, at the basic community level, are banned. Today's rulemaking may bring us all one step closer to victory." "But we could lose by winning," warns constitutional lawyer and former President of the Pacifica Radio Network Peter Franck. "If the FCC moves to legalize micro, but then favors commercial applications and the auction of licenses, the thousands of community groups who have waited for access to the airwaves will lose miserably." The Prometheus Radio Project was created by a ragtag group of radio pirates, RF engineers, and civil rights lawyers who came together to advocate for non-commercial legalization of microradio, and to encourage the public to get involved in the legalization process. "We realized that for real democratic communication to persist, people not willing or interested in asking the FCC to walk the plank will have to be given a voice on the airwaves," said Prometheus organizer David Murphy. "If it hadn't been for the civil disobedience of neighborhood pirate stations all over the country, this rulemaking would not have been a thought in the minds of policy makers and FCC staff, but at the same time, we need to take the next step towards opening up the airwaves to all citizens." Ten days from today, the FCC will accept public comments on its new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking."It is crucial that the public become aware of the opportunity to influence the legalization process. The result will decide whether America wins for itself another genuine democratic institution like the public libraries, or whether it gets stuck with yet another business, " says Sara Zia Ebrahimi, another organizer at Prometheus Radio Project. "Democracy needs more non-commercial spaces, not more concession stands for the powerful." "We believe that a non-commercial, locally owned and operated microradio service is the only way for the remaining slivers of available radio spectrum to be regulated in the public interest, convenience, and neccesity-- the FCC's original, founding promise to American citizens. With so much of our media overwhelmingly dominated by the private interests of commercialism, it would be offensively undemocratic to fill the remaining cracks in the radio spectrum with the advertising and commercials that microbusiness stations will dump on local audiences, " says Ruggiero. Ending the 21 year ban on community access to the airwaves will score a genuine victory for community groups, public interest organizations and the hundreds of movement organizers who, inspired by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., have drawn from the power of civil disobedience to win change from the grassroots. The commercial radio industry represent a formidable force obstructing legalization. "We need more people to stand behind a non-commercial interpretation of public interest," says Ebrahimi, and win microradio for the people, not the corporations of this country, large or small. "



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