Public wins in court over low-power FM

From Matthew Lasar in Ars Technica:

Supporters of low-power FM (LPFM) radio won a victory on Friday when a federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit to stop the Federal Communications Commissions from protecting LPFM stations from full power station signal interference.

"This is terrific news for the low power radio community," declared Sakura Saunders of the Prometheus Radio Project, which helps LPFMs. "Now, these stations can focus on serving their local communities, rather than live in fear of displacement due to the whims of their full-powered neighbors."

On the other hand, the advocacy group that defended the LPFM service was circumspect about the win. "The decision in the courts merely protects the status quo," noted the Media Access Project in a statement sent to Ars. "Congress still must pass legislation to allow more low-power FM stations to operate nationwide."

There's also the question of how to ensure the funding these stations need to more effectively serve their signal areas. More about that later, though. First let's look at the nuts and bolts of this case.....

All this is music to the ears of Congressmember Mike Doyle (D-PA), who, along with Lee Terry (R-NE), has a bill pending that would dump that third-adjacent rule once and for all. There's a parallel proposal in the Senate backed by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John McCain (R-AZ). No big surprise what Doyle thinks should happen now: "Congress should enact the Doyle-Terry-McCain-Cantwell legislation," he told Ars, "to dramatically expand the number of low-power FM stations the FCC is allowed to license."

Radio23 Information Services #81

Handbook on Radio Automation

Stock Shock: Sirius XM Radio Stock Manipulation Movie Trailer

Sirius XM Gets Creative on YouTube

Google tips FCC about new YouTube comment filtering system (digital indecency)

Randomly scanning America's best radio stations on Twitter

Another window for non-profit groups to apply for non-commercial, educational, full-power FM stations

Folks at the Prometheus Radio Project are reporting that the Federal Communications Commission will open another rare opportunity for non-profit organizations to apply for radio licenses. free103point9 won such a license (on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia Counties in New York) during the FCC's October 2007 Full Power Non-Commercial Educational (NCE) filing window for frequencies in the non-commercial band of the FM dial (88-92 FM). "Before that NCE filing window opened, the FCC decided to hold back approximately 65 spots on the dial for locations around the country," a Prometheus says. "These frequencies, called Non-reserved NCE Allotments, are located in the 'Commercial Band' of the FM dial – between 92.1MHz and 107.9MHz – and are set aside for NCE use." The FCC has not announced when exactly the window for applications will be, but it will probably be later in 2009. Watch the Radio For People web site for more information about how to bring community radio to your area.

LPFM Now

Prometheus Radio Group is campaigning for this new Congress to pass Low-Power FM legislation. Download the postcards here, and distribute.

Prometheus intern position available

Prometheus Radio Project has exciting six month paid internships where people come from all over the country and sometimes world to work with us doing a mixture of research, advocacy, activism, and providing of direct services to organizations across the country that want to start or already operate community radio stations. Interns will be involved in projects that include advocating for LPFM in Congress, building radio stations, studying FCC regulations, and working with diverse community groups. Prometheus is a great place to gain skills in political organizing, media research, fundraising, development and technical radio work. Interns participate in the collective decision-making process of the organization and play an important role in organizing community events. We can also assist people in finding housing for this 6 month period. Read the entire intern description here. The deadline to apply is February 15.

Transmission Arts and Radical Radio: film series and workshop

The Change You Want To See Gallery is pleased to host a film series and workshop on transmission arts, sound performance, and radical radio. Join us this Thursday for a screening of "Work Slowly - Radio Alice", an account of an Italian pirate radio station run by the so-called "Mao-Dadaist" wing of the Autonomia movement. Then on Saturday we'll host free103point9's Radio Lab: Art Activism Seminar, with a screening of "A Little Bit of So Much Truth", a film that documents the 2006 popular uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the people's takeover of 14 radio stations and 1 television station to coordinate organizing efforts. A hands-on workshop on transmitter-building will follow. Presenters include freeradio103point9, Prometheus Radio Project, and Germantown Community Farm.

84 Havemeyer Street, at Metropolitan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY 11211
http://www.thechangeyouwanttosee.org
L to Bedford, G to Metropolitan, J/M/Z to Marcy

Thursday, September 25
7:30pm - 9:30pm: Screening of "Work Slowly - Radio Alice" (Lavorare con Lentezza). Discussion to follow.

Saturday, September 27
Radio Lab: Art/Activism Seminar
12pm - 3pm: Screening of "A Little Bit of So Much Truth" (Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad). Discussion to follow, snacks provided.

3pm - 6pm: Presentation and transmitter-building workshop with free103point9, Prometheus Radio Project, and Germantown Community Farm.

free103point9 Radio Labs provide students with technical skills and contextual background to consider and utilize the transmission spectrum for creative expression. Workshops address four main topics: the history of broadcasting; how transmitters work; online transmission tools; and transmission arts as a creative medium.

Join Tianna Kennedy (free103point9 and Lang alumna); and Maka Kotto (Prometheus Radio Project), and Kaya Weisman (Germantown Community Farm) for a screening of "Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad" (Corrugated Films), discussion, and transmitter building workshop.



About "Work Slowly - Radio Alice"
11 March 1977, Bologna. During the violent clashes between police and youths that end up with the intervention of armored vehicles, a Carabiniere kills the student Francesco Lo Russo. 12 March 1977. The brief history of Radio Alice, accused of having directed the battle by radio, ends with the Carabinieri breaking in. It is the first time in the history of the Italian republic that a radio station was closed down by military hands.

Radio Alice, run by the "creative wing" (the so-called Mao-Dadaists") of the radical Autonomia movement, was one of the most singular and original experiments on language and communication that ever took hold in Italy. Lacking a proper newsroom and even less a program schedule, the Bologna broadcaster made spontaneity and linguistic contamination something more than just a flag to wave. It was a project where political, artistic and existential petitions blended in the common denominator of radio space. Today, after more than a quarter of a century, maybe we can start to talk about Alice again, to try to understand if there was something in that voice that could be used again today.

Radio Alice has won several awards and prizes at movie festivals all over Europe, including the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the Best Young Actors at the 2004 Venice Film Festival and the First Prize at the 2005 Festival de Cinema Politic in Barcelona, Spain.

Bolgna-based Wu Ming, a collective of anonymous authors, are credited as co-writers for the Italian film, along with writer/director Guido Chiesa, a film director and rock critic who has directed with Jim Jarmusch, Amos Poe, and Michael Cimino. During the 1990's, the main subject of Chiesa's works was the hertitage and memory of anti-fascist Resistance. Sonic Youth named a song after him ("Guido", from the "Dirty" album, Deluxe edition, cd 2, track #10).

About "Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad"
In the summer of 2006, a broad-based, non-violent, popular uprising exploded in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune, while others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people’s use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca.

A 90-minute documentary, "A Little Bit of So Much Truth" captures the unprecedented media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous communities, health workers, farmers, and students in Oaxaca, Mexico took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands, using them to organize, mobilize, and ultimately defend their grassroots struggle for social, cultural, and economic justice.

Filmmaker, Jill Freidberg, had already spent two years in Oaxaca, producing her previous film, Granito de Arena. She returned to Oaxaca, in 2006, and joined forces with Oaxacan media collective, Mal de Ojo TV, to tell the story of the people who put their lives on the line to give a voice to their struggle. Narrated almost entirely with recordings from the occupied media outlets, A Little Bit of So Much Truth delivers a breathtaking, intimate account of the revolution that WAS televised.

About the Presenters
free103point9 is a New York State-based nonprofit arts organization establishing and cultivating the genre Transmission Arts by promoting artists who explore the idea of transmission or the physical properties of the electromagnetic spectrum for creative expression. free103point9 programs include public performances and exhibitions, an experimental music series, an online radio station and distribution label, an education initiative, and an artist residency program and study center.

The Prometheus Radio Project is a non-profit organization founded by a small group of radio activists in 1998. We believe that a free, diverse, and democratic media is critical to the political and cultural health of our nation, yet we see unprecedented levels of consolidation, homogenization, and restriction in the media landscape. We work toward a future characterized by easy access to media outlets and a broad, exciting selection of cultural and informative media resources.

Germantown Community Farm is a small farm and homestead stewarded by a collective in New York's Hudson Valley. GCF is the response of local food activists, artists, and farmers to global systems of exploitation and oppression. We work to build and support a just regenerative local economy and create vital community.

April Glaser

From Bornina Storm in South Philly Biennial:

April Glaser left home at age 16 to work with left high school and worked with a group of activists in Nashville, Tennessee to build the area's only public access, independent radio station, Radio Free Nashville. It was connected to her home. She soon left for Philly to work with Prometheus Radio Project, to build low-power community radio stations and help with the fight against media consolidation. She has a precocious way of getting herself involved with some of the most interesting, community based, independently minded projects and people. She is currently a student of philosophy and spent last summer living in Michigan on a boat working with FOUND magazine. and plans on spending this summer in the Catskills working on projects with free103point9. She will be setting up a 'pirate' radio station at the Biennial to broadcast music and interviews. Listeners can tune in for a few blocks radius, while she will have radio hats so visitors and artists can listen live. She is very informative and wants everyone to know that she welcomes questions on broadcasting, media consolidation, and the wavy spectrum. Above please check out a video Prometheus projects made of their Nashville, Tennessee project, of which April was involved.

Low power FM advocates push solutions for spectrum availability and encroachment for local community radio

From Pete TriDish at Prometheus Radio Project:

Prometheus Radio Project, working closely with Media Access Project, Common Frequency and students from Penn State, University of Colorado, University of Pennsylvania, and Temple, have released a set of comments and report designed to move the debate forward on the future of LPFM.

In these comments, Low Power advocates praised the Commission for actions that they took last fall to protect low power stations from encroachment, and recommended several measures that would further protect stations. These measures included requiring that if a low power station was displaced by a full power station, that the full power licensee pay full reasonable costs incurred by the LPFM. We also recommended that displacements not be allowed to occur unless a channel was found of equal coverage and quality for the LPFM station. Full power licensees had put in several petitions against the FCC's new policies on encroachment, and much of the comment was devoted to disproving their arguments.

On spectrum availability, low power advocates did extensive study of the current state of the FM band. We found evidence that while the FCC's measures from last fall were very helpful, they did not do enough to open up spectrum for Low Power radio stations. The FCC has limited pending translator applications to 10 per applicant, and tentatively concluded that they would allow Low Power FMs to use the contour overlap method for allocating low power stations. However, the FCC did not make a decision on priority between LPFMs and translators, and invited more comment. An extensive, painstaking study was conducted of translators on the FM band, and their preclusive impact upon potential low power channel availability.

Our studies found that unless there was a significant change in priority between LPFMs and translators, many translator owners would continue to have hundreds of repetitions of their signals while the FCC tells LPFMs that there are no channels available.

Earlier proposals from LPFM advocates have focused on limits to the number of translators that any entity can own, or physical distance from the translator to its originating station. Translator owners continue to insist that they are entitled to as many translators as they feel like having, and have fired off a mountain of legal action and lawsuits at the Commission to prevent the FCC from taking any actions, however small, to promote localism through licensing of LPFM stations.

Low Power advocates advanced a plan which proposed an innovative, dramatic compromise. Building on an idea from the always insightful communications attorney Michael Couzens, we have developed a concept that should accommodate all reasonable use of translators while capping some of the abuses prevalent in repeater licensing today. Translator owners could have up to 10 translators with coverage inside the top 303 urban markets as described by Arbitron. Radio stations could have up to 10 repetitions of their originating signal inside the top 303 markets. These first ten would be primary to new low power signals. Any additional translators would be subject to displacement by a low power applicant who pledged to meet a locally produced programming requirement. Appropriate limitations would be placed on buying and selling of translators and other speculative behavior. Separately, the idea was also brought up that translator owners, under certain circumstances, might be enabled to sell translators to groups that could not find another channel.

Prometheus hopes that legitimate users of translators will join us in these ideas for reasonable "rules of the road" for translators and reject the speculators and empire builders in their midst, who have succeeded in gumming up the legitimate licensing system for everyone seeking licenses from the FCC.

Comments also supported the Creation of LCFM, or Local Community FM, a new class of licensing identical to LPFM but using the more technically flexible "contour overlap " method, which would allow LPFMs to do technical studies (similar to the ones currently used by translators). to find viable channels currently not available under the current LPFM licensing system. Stations would have to pay for an engineer to conduct a channel search, and these stations would have to protect existing stations from any interference complaints. The prospect of finding available channels even in some of the densest urban areas would be an exciting step forward for community radio, though our studies have found that availability will be low for LCFM unless there is a re-ordering of priorities between translator applicants and LPFM.

Technical Research by Rachel Healy, Patricia McCarthy, Jan Schieffer, Sakura Saunders, Pete Tridish, Todd Urick, and John Wenz. Legal research by Andrew Christopher, Daniel Goshorn, Michael Hartman, David Wilson and comments were authored by Parul Desai. Outreach for comments was done by Kate Blofson, Muna Hijazi, Megan Sheehan, Hannah Sassaman and Steven Bluhm.

Comments were endorsed by:
PROMETHEUS RADIO PROJECT
NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION
RECLAIM THE MEDIA
COMMON CAUSE
UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION, INC.
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF COMMUNITY BROADCASTERS
FREE PRESS
BENTON FOUNDATION
NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION
NATIVE PUBLIC MEDIA
CONSUMERS UNION
FUTURE OF MUSIC COALITION
CCTV CENTER FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY
CENTER FOR DIGITAL DEMOCRACY
MEDIA ALLIANCE
COMMON FREQUENCY
MEDIA MOBILIZING PROJECT
KFOK-LP, KFOK COMMUNITY RADIO, GEORGETOWN, CA
KOWS-LP AND THE OCCIDENTAL ARTS AND ECOLOGY CENTER,
OCCIDENTAL, CA
KPYT-LP, PASQUA-YAQUI INDIAN TRIBE, TUSCON, AZ
KYRS-LP, THIN AIR COMMUNITY RADIO, SPOKANE, WA
MEDIA BRIDGES, CINCINNATI, OH
MONTAGUE COMMUNITY TV, MONTAGUE, MA
WCNH-LP, HIGHLANDS COMMUNITY BROADCASTING, CONCORD, NH
WCOM-LP, COMMUNITY RADIO OF CARRBORO, CARRBORO, NC
WEZU-LP, ROANOKE RAPIDS, NC
WCRX-LP, BEXLEY PUBLIC RADIO FOUNDATION, BEXLEY, OH
WPVM-LP, MOUNTAIN AREA INFORMATION NETWORK, ASHEVILLE, NC
WRFN-LP, RADIO FREE NASHVILLE, PASQUO, TN
WSCA-LP, PORTSMOUTH COMMUNITY RADIO, PORTSMOUTH, NH
WXOJ-LP, VALLEY FREE RADIO, NORTHAMPTON, MA
AUSTIN AIRWAVES, INC., AUSTIN, TX
CHIRP-CHICAGO INDEPENDENT RADIO PROJECT
NEW MEXICO MEDIA LITERACY PROJECT
KDRT-LP, DAVIS COMMUNITY RADIO, DAVIS, CA
KREV-LP, 104.7, UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF ESTES PARK, CO
KXRG-LP, HONOLULU, HI
WXCS-LP, CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY RADIO ASSOCIATION,
CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, PA
WCRS-LP, SIMPLY LIVING, COLUMBUS, OH
WRYR-LP, WRYR COMMUNITY RADIO, SHERWOOD, MD
WXBH-LP, LOUISVILLE COMMUNITY RADIO, LOUISVILLE, KY
KPCN-LP, PINEROS Y CAMPESINOS UNIDOS DEL NOROESTE, WOODBURN, OR
MULTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN OREGON, KSKQ COMMUNITY RADIO
WIDE-LP MADISON, WI
FOREST HILLS SCHOOL DISTRICT, CINCINNATI, OH
KKDS-LP, BLUE OX YOUTH AND COMMUNITY RADIO, EUREKA, CA
WSLR-LP, Sarasota Local Radio, Sarasota, FL
KLDK-LP, Embudo Valley Community Library, Dixon, NM
KOCZ-LP, Southern Development Foundation, Opelousas, LA

The Comments are available at the Electronic Comment Filing system page on the FCC's website, and will be up on prometheus' website soon.

Two job openings at Prometheus Radio Project

The Prometheus Radio Project is hiring for two permanent full time jobs -- a Station Support Organizer and a Campaign Director. Please read the e-mail below for short descriptions of our organization, of the jobs, and for details on what you'll need to send us to apply. Full job descriptions can be found on our website:
http://www.prometheusradio.org. Send all materials to jobs @ prometheusradio.org with the appropriate job mentioned in the subject line.

The Prometheus Radio Project is a grassroots organization that works to expand and protect community radio stations, and to promote a more democratic and accountable media in the United States and around the world. From Black Panther-led community centers in Tanzania to farmworker groups in Oregon, we help groups build their own radio stations as tools for their vital social justice organizing.

Every day, Prometheus advocates for these groups and their stations, helps them organize with allies near and far for their rights, and works with them to keep their stations thriving and to help leaders teach new radio pioneers the skills needed to own your own media. Prometheus helps community groups navigate the Federal Communications Commission and the radio licensing process, and we provide technical assistance to groups building radio stations. Prometheus also advocates in Congress and at the FCC to protect community radio, and we actively participate in the broader campaign for a better media. Prometheus are tireless in their fight to make community radio stations and other appropriate technologies available to every neighborhood, every city, every town that needs them.

Statement of the Prometheus Radio Project on announcement of impending FCC notice on LPFM radio

From Prometheus Radio Project:

On Tuesday, November 20, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it was ready to pass a set of provisions amending the rules that govern the low power FM radio (LPFM) service -- a noncommercial radio service that hundreds of schools, churches, municipalities, and community groups use to connect with their local communities. Below is the press statement of Pete Tridish, founder of the Prometheus Radio Project, on the announcement.

Click here for a printable copy of this statement: http://www.prometheusradio.org/media/rulemaking_announcement_LPFM_nov_21_2007_final.doc

Click here for a link to the FCC meeting agenda, announcing their intent to make some major decisions on the low power FM radio service: http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/#nov27.

Click here for a statement from Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Congressman Lee Terry (R-NE), sponsors of the Local Community Radio Act of 2007, on the priority of low power FM radio stations over translators: http://www.prometheusradio.org/media/doyle_terry_translators_FCC_july_2007.pdf

Contact: Pete Tridish, Prometheus Radio Project Founder: 215-727-9620 x 501, 215-605-9297, petri@prometheusradio.org.

"In recent weeks, the Federal Communications Commission, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, have made strong public statements about supporting the low power FM radio service, and the vital work that it does nationwide. As the commission works at its November 27th meeting to make decisions about the future of LPFM, they must lay the groundwork to ensure that LPFM will not only be available in rural areas in the future. They must also protect the low power stations from losing their frequencies to full power stations that encroach upon their signals, and threaten to knock them off the air.

As a diverse set of groups, including Prometheus, have proposed over recent years, the FCC must prioritize local low power FM radio stations over translator chains fed by distant signals. The FCC has frozen the granting of translator licenses for the time being, to investigate the practices of these chains and to balance the priority of distant translator use with the needs of local radio. The FCC cannot move to lift the current freeze on the granting of licenses to these translator chains without prioritizing local radio over these distant-fed translators. Without remedying this problem, the Commission is telling the American public that they are prioritizing these distant voices, once and for all, and informing local groups that would like one single, local, hundred-watt-or-less radio station that there is no room on the dial left for them.

When Congress temporarily limited LPFM in 2000, they mandated that the FCC study whether or not there would be room for these vital stations in America's cities and smaller communities. During the exact moment when this study and its technical field tests were being completed in 2003, the FCC made the mistake of allowing a handful of speculators to apply for translator licenses on thousands of the very same channels that had been promised for LPFM use. When it comes to translators and low power FM radio stations, the FCC allocates spectrum based simply upon who filed their application first. If the FCC chooses to prioritize these translator applicants, all of the frequencies that the FCC designed for LPFM use back in 2000 will have been given away.

In that 2003 window, a single translator applicant applied for 2500 licenses to broadcast, nationwide. One radio station currently has 792 translator applications repeating its signal.

In 2005, the FCC wisely froze translator applications like those listed above in order to find an intelligent resolution. In recent statements, Chairman Martin announced a limited proposal to reject some of these applicants, but if the FCC wants to support low power FM radio, they have a lot of work to do.

No matter what happens in Congress, LPFM will only be available in America's cities if the FCC acts to make room for it. The Commission needs to revise the spectrum priority relationship between LPFMs and these distant translator chains. There are a number of ways that this can be done without affecting the legitimate use of repeating stations by local networks.

In terms of low power FM stations being encroached upon by full power stations that want their signals -- while dozens of stations are under threat of this happening in the next weeks or months, the Commission and its staff should be commended for the work they've done, case by case, to make room for both these threatened stations and the full power stations moving into their path.

We encourage the Commission to continue to address the simplest displacement cases now and relieve the hold up on some of these less problematic encroachments. The few, tougher cases should remain on hold for settlement until, through further comment, more innovative solutions are found. Also, hasty judgment should not be made on the fate of low power stations suffering dramatically increased interference through encroachments -- more solutions can be found in these cases after further comment. Another excellent option for frequency availability for LPFMs at the disposal of the Commission is to use more detailed engineering methods -- methods which can open up a limited number of new options for communities. This could be exciting if the order of application problem (between the chains that got an opportunity to apply before communities got their chance) were resolved.

The statements that the FCC and Chairman Martin have made on the small ameliorative measures they might take for LPFM are helpful and well intentioned, and we'd like to give credit where credit is due -- but all of these measures pale in contrast to the prospect of America's cities never getting a fair chance at low power radio, and the importance of keeping low power FM radio stations serving their full communities.

Prometheus would heartily congratulate the hard work of the Chairman Martin and the FCC staff on this new low power notice, so long as the Commission does not:

1) foreclose the LPFM opportunity in the cities by ignoring the translator/LPFM priority problem, and

2) make hasty judgment on the hardest encroachment cases, and cases that do not involve displacement but do involve significant interference. These should be resolved after another round of comment and creative problem solving."