Local Community Radio Act moves to Senate

From Radio Magazine:

The Local Community Radio Act (S.592) was passed unanimously in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation with a voice vote. Both the Senate and House versions of the bill are on their way to full floor votes. The act seeks to repeal restrictions placed on low-power FM stations in 2000.

A press release from the Prometheus Project, a group that supports the efforts of low-power radio stations, cited the importance of allowing more low-power radio stations to operate because of their usefulness in times of emergency. While it's a valid point that low-power stations can serve a need to provide public information from a small setup operating on a portable generator, that is not the regular application of LPFM services.

Cory Fischer-Hoffman, Campaign Director for the Prometheus Radio Project said that disasters are not the only time when the public lacks access to local news. Prometheus also notes that LPFM would provide another source of local programming specific to neighborhoods and towns.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee, also noted the potential of low-power radio in changing the face of media ownership. The Local Community Radio Act is co-sponsored in the Senate by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John McCain (R-AZ). While this Senate legislation has passed out of committee in the previous two sessions, this year marks the first time that the House version passed through the House Subcommittee and Committee.

New LPFM legislation to be introduced

From Future of Music blog:

It was only a matter of time before the new Congress saw the re-introduction of a pro-Low Power FM bill. If passed, this legislation would create opportunities for hundreds more community radio stations in cities, towns and suburbs across the United States. The House of Representative's new Local Community Radio Act represents a strong step forward towards this goal.

FMC has long advocated for LPFM (and non-commercial, community radio in general) as an alternative to the homogenized playlists often heard on hyper-consolidated corporate radio. LPFM in more areas would be a tremendous boon to local and independent artists who typically find themselves shut out from area commercial stations. We figure that if more people had the chance to hear the talent in their own backyards, it might even have a positive effect on local economies.

But LPFM isn't just good for musicians — new low-power licenses would make radio station ownership possible for schools, churches, labor unions, local governments, emergency providers and other nonprofit groups, who could use the public airwaves to directly communicate with their local community.

The bipartisan Local Community Radio Act will be sponsored by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.). The last time LPFM legislation was introduced, it won nearly 100 co-sponsors in the House. The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and co-sponsored by then-Senator Barack Obama, unanimously passed out of the Commerce Committee. The Senate is expected to reintroduce a new version of the bill in the near future.