Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is feeling his oats. After conducting a calculated and ideologically-driven campaign against a proposed FCC study of the practices and processes of journalism, the agency capitulated, killing the idea entirely. Pai reveled in his accomplishment: "In our country, the government does not tell the people what information they need. Instead, news outlets and the American public decide that for themselves."
Yet the FCC is in fact defining what news is, and it did so just last month—before Pai went on the warpath about the FCC as "newsroom police." Continue reading “The FCC as News Police: Right Hand, Meet Left Hand”
Author: diymedia_tu6dox
Clashing Realities: iBiquity vs. Consumer Reports
In a new blog post, iBiquity Digital Corporation Ceo Bob Struble reports back from the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show about the changing landscape of automotive infotainment, and HD Radio as an "indispensable requirement" in today’s media environment.
HD Radio has some sort of foothold in "every car manufacturer" now, "and was built into 1/3 of all new cars sold in America last year," writes Struble. But that’s not enough: "Cars are coming with big, bright color screens as part of these infotainment systems. Car designers want advanced HD Radio features like iTunes Tagging and Artist Experience – album cover art – to take advantage of those screens and provide listeners with the experience they expect." The takeaway: broadcasters need to step up HD adoption. Continue reading “Clashing Realities: iBiquity vs. Consumer Reports”
Abusing the Bully Pulpit
It’s common for members of the Federal Communications Commission to use their positions as bully pulpits for favored causes. For example, Frieda Hennock (the agency’s first female Commissioner) pressed for an expansion of noncommercial broadcasting in the United States. Former Chairman Mark Fowler spoke loudly and often from the bully pulpit, decrying the regulation of media more broadly and precipitating the wildly neoliberal paradigm that has captured contemporary regulation.
More recently, Chairman William Kennard spoke out against media consolidation by advocating for the creation of the LPFM radio service, while Commissioner Mignon Clyburn spearheaded a drive to drastically reduce the rates for making calls from prisons, among many other initiatives during her stint as interim Chair.
But sometimes the bully pulpit provides a way to dissent from agency practices, the idea being that public scrutiny may pressure some change from within. Former Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein were famous for touring the country and holding public hearings to learn what actual Americans thought about the state of their media environment. Continue reading “Abusing the Bully Pulpit”
RadioDiscussions Sheepishly Restored
A curious e-mail hit my inbox this weekend announcing the resurrection of RadioDiscussions.com. Once a mainstay of online discussion about U.S. broadcasting, the site suddenly disappeared in December when its owner, Streamline Media, pulled the plug. Streamline had just purchased RadioDiscussions seven months before declaring it unprofitable.
The new manager is Charles Bosworth (aka "Charlie Profit"), a Canadian radio professional who’s branched out into new media marketing. Bosworth is also the administrator of Your Midwest Media, a message board focused on the central United States. Continue reading “RadioDiscussions Sheepishly Restored”
FCC Enforcement in 2013: No Great Crusade
The federales ended their unlicensed broadcast enforcement activity with a whimper last year, apparently taking the month of December off completely. The entirety of 2013 saw 249 FCC enforcement actions, a slight reduction from 2012 levels.
Overall, the FCC was active against pirate stations in 24 states and the District of Columbia, and more than 90% of those stations involved were on the FM band. The vast majority of enforcement activity was concentrated on the coasts, with New York and New Jersey being the hottest spots for pirates—as evidenced by the major sweep the FCC did there in July. (For what it’s worth, there’s been no material change in the number of FM frequencies occupied by interlopers on my own radio dial here in Brooklyn.) Continue reading “FCC Enforcement in 2013: No Great Crusade”
Free Speech Radio News Rides Again
Free Speech Radio News announced this past weekend that it will resume a semblance of operations on Tuesday, February 11th. It’s a soft launch, beginning with the provision of limited content and then working up to the resumption of regular daily broadcasts.
A pioneer of the networked newsroom, FSRN has been a stalwart of community broadcasting in the United States for more than a dozen years. Unfortunately, it fell silent last September after its major funder, Pacifica Radio, welshed on several outstanding bills. Continue reading “Free Speech Radio News Rides Again”
Free Radio Network (not quite) Resurrected
Recently stumbled across thefrn.net—a bare-bones bulletin board where just a handful of the shortwave pirate enthusiasts that frequented the original Free Radio Network have re-congregated.
The story isn’t completely clear, but it appears that the FRN’s founders have given up the ghost, shutting down their server permanently. According to shortwave pirate-watcher extraordinaire Ragnar Daneskjold, "Unfortunately it looks like we lost the huge database of old logs, posts and information. That was a huge wealth of knowledge and history." Indeed it was…and simply shameful if true. Continue reading “Free Radio Network (not quite) Resurrected”
Canada Considers Adopting HD Radio
iBiquity Digital Corporation’s recent claim that HD Radio is on the way to becoming the North American digital radio standard actually has some merit. More than enough, in fact, that it’s surprising that the company didn’t announce how far along things are in Canada: as part of a wide-ranging proceeding on rules revisions to the radio sector, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is now soliciting formal comment on the notion of adopting HD Radio.
In 2006, the CRTC announced that it was prepared to reconsider its adoption of the Eureka 147 DAB standard as Canada’s digital radio platform. Since then, broadcasters have abandoned it and the CRTC is phasing out DAB licenses.
In 2012, iBiquity made approaches to several broadcasters in Canada about becoming test-beds for HD technology. Three stations in the Toronto area accepted the call. CING-FM, an adult-contemporary station owned by Corus Entertainment—Canada’s fourth-largest commercial broadcaster—has been the primary platform for technical tests, including datacasting experiments. The other two stations, CFMS-FM and CJSA-FM, are classified as "ethnic" stations, which basically means the majority of their programming isn’t in English. Canadian Multicultural Radio, the owner of CJSA, announced just last week that it will soon roll out FM-HD multichannel programming in Tamil, Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi. Continue reading “Canada Considers Adopting HD Radio”
Preliminary AM Revitalization Comments Roundup
With the first round of public comment on the FCC’s AM revitalization initiative due next week, it’s not a bad time to sample the feedback that’s come in so far: just about 65 comments in total.
There are some general points of consensus across most commenters. The strongest involves the increase of interference across the entire AM dial. Much of this comes from improperly-shielded consumer electronics, lighting fixtures, and power lines, which can wreak absolute havoc on AM reception in localized areas. The FCC has the authority to require that all such devices meet standards to reduce harmful emissions—but the huge influx of cheap sh*t from overseas is far, far more than the FCC can handle without a substantial increase in enforcement resources.
Another point of consensus is that the FCC should require AM radio receivers to work at a certain level of quality. Another side-effect of the influx of cheap electronic componentry means that the sensitivity and fidelity of modern AM receivers (especially in automobiles) is actually worse than they were, say, two decades ago. There is regulatory precedent for the FCC to consider and adopt minimum AM receiver-standards, but the power of the consumer electronics industry in D.C. will strongly resist any such notion. Continue reading “Preliminary AM Revitalization Comments Roundup”
HD Radio in 2014: More Baby Steps—Toward What?
As the year rolled over, a variety of news-bits came out about the state of HD Radio in the United States.
Moving On: HD Radio’s now been around for a quarter-century. The initial development of the in-band, on-channel (IBOC) protocol that constitutes HD broadcasting first began as a science project under the auspices of Westinghouse in 1989. It’s been a long, strange trip since then: overpromising, underdelivering, crash-development, and finally a "workable" protocol. This process has constituted a career for some people—one of whom is now tending greener pastures. Continue reading “HD Radio in 2014: More Baby Steps—Toward What?”