Amendment One: The Ventriloquist's
New Trick
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Welcome to the first article in my new column: AMENDMENT ONE. My companion column, THE 21st CENTURY POPULIST, deals with politics in general. This column focuses on the continuing battle to preserve and expand free speech, in part by creating more pathways for the free flow of ideas and information. Much of the current conflict centers less on outright censorship than on one of its precursors: huge concentrations of media control. Cheered on by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush alike, we have reached a point at which a handful of companies, joined by National Public Radio, control most of the communication and information sources used by most of the American people. In such a media environment, we hear too few truly varied voices and even fewer truly varied ideas. Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps calls today’s American broadcasting “ventriloquism”: many apparent voices, with almost all of them coming from a handful of hidden masters. This trend may be poised for another round of acceleration, as the FCC considers, in spite of massive citizen opposition, ending its last remaining limits on how much of the media a single entity can own. In the meantime, other media industries are also becoming more consolidated. According to Professor Stephen Barber of Rutgers University, in his book Jihad vs. McWorld, 6 firms now control 50% of all the book publishing capacity in the world. The ventriloquist’s latest trick, however, is more subtle. It involves not mergers and acquisitions, but use of broadcast technology as a club to batter rivals. The technology is iBiquity Corporation’s version of In Band On Channel (IBOC) Digital Radio -- with iBiquity being an equipment manufacturer owned, in part, by many of the same large broadcasters who will be buying its products. The FCC recently approved IBOC broadcasts, on an “interim” basis, without first taking any action to test or evaluate any of the competing Digital Radio technologies. While critics and supporters debate whether the un-competitively selected IBOC technology actually improves audio clarity (as claimed), it is widely acknowledged that radio stations which shift to IBOC broadcasting will take up at least 50% more bandwidth. This is functionally the same as reducing room on the radio spectrum by 33%. Since most or all of the available radio frequencies are already spoken for in most metropolitan areas, radio interference from large new IBOC stations will, in many places, bury the signals of smaller existing stations. The FCC approved IBOC on October 11, 2002. On October 25, dozens of parties, with Yours Truly as their attorney, filed a Petition For Reconsideration. As of March 14, 2003, the FCC has neither approved nor rejected the Petition. Still, “real world” reports of IBOC interference have begun to flow in, and more voices of protest, including those of 8 broadcast engineers, have been heard On The Record. Yet most endangered radio stations have been oddly silent. The question: Will they speak out before they are driven off the air? WANT TO BLOCK IBOC? Write a letter to the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION - expressing support for the multi-party PETITION FOR RECONSIDERATION filed on October 25, 2002 in FCC DOCKET 99-325. The deadline for formal Written Comments and/or Reply Comments has passed, but LETTERS referencing FCC DOCKET 99-325 may still be accepted. Address Your Letter To: File Your Letter Electronically: At the bottom of the Filing Form: COPYRIGHT 2003 BY DON SCHELLHARDT Don Schellhardt is a former Washington lawyer and current “grassroots” activist for political reform. During his 20 years in Washington, D.C., Don served as Legislative Counsel to Representative Matthew J. Rinaldo (R-NJ, retired), Legislative Analyst for the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Research Committee and Policy Advisor on global warming and energy efficiency at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He also spent 12 years as a Government Relations executive with the American [Natural] Gas Association, where his posts included Director of State, Local and Coalition Relations and Director of Legislative and Regulatory Affairs. Don’s achievements in Washington included contributions toward the enactment of Federal statutes which reduce acid rain and encourage cleaner, more energy-efficient combined cycle turbines in new powerplants. Don also played a role in the adoption of State and local regulations which encourage or require greater use of natural gas and electric vehicles in California (especially the Los Angeles Basin), Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. Don left the Republican Party in 1988 and Washington, D.C. in 1992. Since then, he has represented abused children in the courts of Virginia, served as an advocate for autistic children and adults in Virginia and actively opposed further development of Lookout Mountain in Colorado. He has also fought for greater diversity in media ownership and programming --- with efforts that included a leadership role in the successful campaign to establish small, community-oriented Low Power FM radio stations throughout the country. |